A Burnt-out Case

A Burnt-Out Case

BOOKS BY

GRAHAM GREENE

NOVELS

The Mark Within
It's a Battlefield
England Made Me
Brighton Rock
The Power and the Glory
The Heart of the Matter
The End of the Affair
The Quiet American
A Burnt-Out Case

SHORT STORIES

Twenty-one Stories

ENTERTAINMENTS
Stamboul Train
A Gun for Sale
The Confidential Agent
The Ministry of Fear
The Third Man and The Fallen Idol
Loser Takes All
Our Man in Havana

TRAVEL

Journey Without Maps
The Lawless Roads

ESSAYS

The Lost Childhood

PLAYS

The Living Room
The Pott%.ig Shed
The Complaisant' Lover

GRAHAM GREENR

A Burnt-Out Case

HEINEMANN

LONDON MELBOURNE ^ TORONTO

V^illiam Heinemann Ltd

LONDON MELBOURNE TORONTO
CAPE TOWN AUCKLAND
THE HAGUE

© GRAHAM GREENE igiO
<

This English language edition first published 1916

© GRAHAM GREENE igi6

Printed in Great Britain
by the Windmill Press Ltd
Kipgswood, Surrey

“Io non iribri’, c non nmasi vivo.” (I did not die, yet
nothing of life remained) .

Dante.

“Winiiin limits of normality, every individual loves
himself. In eases where he has a deformity or abnor-
mality 01 develops it later, his own aesthetic sense
revets and he develops a sort of disgust towards him-
self. Though with time, he becomes ^reconciled to
his deformities, it is only at the conscious level. His
sub-conscious mind, which continues to bear the
mark? of injury, brings about certain changes m his
whole personality, making him suspicious of society.”

R. V. Wardekar in a pamphlet on leprosy.

To Docieur Michel Lectiat

Dear Michel,

I hope you will accept the dedication of this novel
which owes any merit «it may have to your kindness
and patience ; the faults, failures and inaccuracies arc
the author’* alone. Dr. Colin has borrowed from you
his cxpei lence of leprosy and nothing else. Dr. Colin’s
leproserie is not your leproserie - which now, I fear,
has probably ceased to exist. Even geflgraphically it
is placed in a region far from Yonda. Every leproserie,
of course, has features in common, and from Yonda
and other leproscries which I visited in the Con£o and
the Cameroons I may have taken superficial charac-
teristics. From the fathers of your Mission I have
stolen the Superior’s cheroots - that is all, and from
your Bishop the boat that he was so gerferous as to lend
me for a journey u^the Ruki. It would be a waste of
time {or anyone to try to identify Querry, the Ryckers,
Parkinson, Father Thomas - they are formed from the
flotsam of thirty years as a novelist. This is not a ro^art
d defy but an attempt to give dramatic expression to
Various types of belief, half-belief and non-belief, in the
kind of setting, removed from world-politics and
hoiisehold-preoccupatiftns, where such differences
are felt acutely and find expression. This Congo is a

region of fhe mind, and the reader will find no place
called Luc on any map, nor did its Govern<*f and
Bishop exist in any regional capital.

You, if anyone, will know how far I have failed in
what I attempted. A doctor is not immune from “the
long despair of doing nothing wd 1,” the cafard that
hangs around a writer’s life. I omy wish I had dedi-
cated to you a better book m f'et^rn for the limitless
generosity I was shown at Y^nda by yoi and the
fathers of the mission.

Affectionately yours,

Graham Greene.

Part I

Chapter One

i

The cabin^passenger wrote in his diary a parody of
Descartes: “I feel discomfort, therefore I am alive,”
then sat pen in hand with no more to record. The
captain in a white soutane stood by the open windows
of the saloon reading his breviary. There was not
enough^ir to stir the fringes of his beard. The two of
them had b#en alone together on the river for ten days
- alone-, that is to say, except for the six members of the
African crew and the dozen or so deck-passengers who
changed, almost indistinguishably, af each village
where they stopped. The boat, which was the property
of thq Bishop, resembled a small battered Mississippi
paddte-steamcr with a high nineteenth-century fore-
structure, the white paint badly in need of renewal.
From die saloon- windows they could see the river
before them unwind, and below them on the pontoon#
the passengers sat and dressed their Kair among the
logs of wood for the^ngine.

If no change means peace, this certainly was peace,
to be found like a nut at the centre of the hard shell
of discomfort - the heat that engulfed them whjre
the river narrowed to a mere hundred metres: the
shower that was always hot from the ship’s engine:
in the evening the mosquitoes, and in the day the
tsetse flies with wings rSked back like tiny jcfr-fighters
(a board above the bank at the last village had warned

3

them in three languages: “Zone of sleeping sickness.
Be careful of {he tsetse flies.’’) The captaip rdSd his
breviary with a fly-whisk in his hand, and whenever
he (tiade a kill he held up the tiny corpse for the pas-
senger’s inspection, saying “tsetse” - it was nearly the
limit of tfreir communication, for neither spoke the
other’s language with ease or accuracy.

Tfiis was sonqewhat the w^y \n which the days
passed. The passenger would be woken atVour in the
morning by the tinkling sound of the sanctus-bell
in the saloon, and presently from the window of the
Bishop’s cabin, which he shared with a crucifix, a
chair, a table, a cupboard where cockroaches lurked,
and one picture - the nostalgic photograph of some
church in Europe covered in a soutane of heavy snow,
he would see the congregation going home across
the gang-plank. He would watch them as they clinched
the steep bank and disappeared into the bush, swing-
ing lanterns like the carol-singers he had once seen
during his stay in a New England village. By hye the
boat was on the move again, and at six as the sufi rose
he would eat his breakfast with the captain. The next
three hours, before the great heat had begun, were for
koth men the best of the day, and the passenger found
that he could watch, with a kind of inert content, the
thick, rapid, khaki-coloured stream against which the
small boat fought its way at about three knotty the
engine, somewhere below the altar aqid the Holy
*Fa{nily, groaning like an exhausted animal and the
big wheel churning away at the stern. A lot of effort it
seemed for so slow a progress. Every few hours k
fishing-village came into sight, the houses standing
high on stilts to guard them a^aiqst the big rains and
the rats. At times a member of the crew called up to

4

the captain, and the captain would take his gun and
shoot^t some small sign of life that only he and the
sailor h%d eyes to detect among the green and blue
shadows of the forest: a baby crocodile sunning <yi a
fallen log, or a fishing eagle which waited motionless
among the leaves. At nine the heat had really begun,
and the captain, haVing finished reading his breviary,
would oil his gun dr kill a few more tsetse flies, and
sometimes, # sitting down at the dining-table with a
- box of beads, he would set himself\he task of manu-
facturing cheap rosaries.

After the midday meal both men retired to their
cabins as the forests sauntered by under the exhaust-
ing sun® Even when the passenger was naked it was
difficult for him to sleep, and he was never finally able
to decide between letting a little draught pass through
his C£bin or keeping the hot air out. The boat possessed
no fan, and so he woke always with a foiled mouth,
and while the warm water in the shower cleaned his
body* it could not refresh it.

There yet remained another hour or two of* peace
towards the end of the day, when he sat below on a
pontocn while the Africans prepared their chop in the
early dark. The vampire-bats creaked over the forest
and candles flickered, reminding him of the Bene-
dictions of his youth, The laughter of the cooks went
back and forth from one pontoon to the other, and it
was never long before someone sang, but he couldn’t
understand the words.

At dinner they had to close the windows of the
s&loon and draw the curtains to, so that the steersman
might see his way between the banks and snags, and
then the pressure-lapip^ave out too great a at for so
small a room. To delay the hour of bed they played

5

t

quatre cent vingt et un wordlessly like a ritual mime,
and the captain invariably won as though {he£od he
believed in, who was said to control the winds and
wayes, controlled the dice too in favour of his
priest.

This wjas the moment for talk in garbled French
or garbled Flemish if they were going to talk, but they
never talked mu^h. Once the passenger asked, “What
aie they singing, father? What kind of solig? A love
song?”

“No,” the captain said, “not a love song. They sing
only about what has happened during the day, how
at the last village they bought some fine cooking-pots
which they will sell for a good profit further up the
river, and of course they sing of you and me. They
call me the great fetishist,” he added with a smile and
nodded at the Holy Family and the pull-out altar
over the cupbbard where he kept the cartridges for his
gun and his fishing-tackle. He killed a mosquito with
a slap on his naked arm and said. “There is a motto in
the hiongo language, ‘The mosquito has no phy for
the thin man’.”

“What do they sing about me?”

*• “They are singing now, I think.” He put the dice
and counters away and listened. “Shall I translate for
you ? It is not altogether complimentary.”

“Yes, if you please.”

“Here is a white man who is neither ^ father nor a
'doctor. He has no beard. He comes from a long way
away - we do not know from where - and he tells no
one to what place he is going nor why. He is a rich mad,
for he drinks whisky every evening and he smokes all
the time«Yet he offers no mar! a cigarette’.”

“That had never occurred to me.”

6

“Of course,” the captain said, “I know where you
are going^ but you have never told me why.” .

“Thejroad was closed by floods. Th k was the only
route.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

About nine in the evening they usually, if the river
had not widened and thus made navigation easy,
pulled into the banK. Sometimes they would find there
a rating upturned bo&t which serve?! as shelter when
.it rained for unlikely passengers. Twice the captain
disembarked his ancient bicycle and bounced off into
the dark interior to try to obtain some cargo from a
colon living miles away and save it from the hands of
the O.'^.R.A.C.O. company, the great monopolist of
the river and the tributaries, and there were times, if
they vert not too late in tying up, when they received
unexpected visitors. On one occasion a man, a woman
and a child, with sickly albino skins that came from
years of heat and humidity, emerged from the thick
rain-forest in an old station-wagon ; the man drank a
glass or two of whisky, while he and the priest com-
plained of the price that O.T.R.A.C.O. charged for
fuelling wood and spoke of the riots hundreds of miles
away in the capital, while the woman sat silent hold#
ing the child’s hand and stared at the Holy Family.
When there were qo European visitors there were
always the old women, their heads tied up in dusters,
their bodies wrapped in mammy-cloths, the once
bright colours so faded that you could scarcely detect®
the printed designs of match-boxes, soda-wlter
siphons, telephones, or other gimmicks of the white
man. They shuffled into the saloon on their knees and
patiently waited undtSr the roaring pressgrc-lamp
until they were noticed. Then, with an apology to his

7

passenger, the captain would send him to l^s cabin,
for tl\ese were confessions that he had to hear mcecret.
It was the end of one more day.

2

For several mornings they were< pursued by yellow
butterflies which were a welcome change from the
t* otses. The butterflies came talking into the salgon as
soon as it was light, while the river still lay under a
layer of mist like steam on a vat. When the mist
cleared they could see one bank lined with white
nenuphars which from a hundred yards away resem-
bled a regiment of swans. The colour of the jvater in
this wider reach was pewter, except wheje the wheel
churned the wake to chocolate, and the green
reflection of the woods was not mirrored on the
surface but s&med to shine up from underneath the
paper-thin transparent pewter. Two men who stood
in a pirogue had their legs extended by their shadows
so thit they appeared to be wading knee-deep *n the
water. The passenger said, “Look, father, over there.
Doesn’t that suggest to you an explanation f>f how
/Christ was thought to be walking on the water ?” but
the captain, who was taking aim at a heron standing
behind the rank of nenuphars^ did not bother to
answer. He had a passion for slaughtering any,living
thing, as though only man had the right to a natural
’ death.

kfter six days they came to an African seminary
standing like an ugly red-brick university at the top ef
the clay bank. At this seminary the captain had once
taught Qreek, and so they stepped here for the night,
partly for old-times sake and partly to enable them to

8

buy wo^d at a cheaper price than Otraco charged. The
loadiifg began immediately - the young black semin-
arists were standing ready, before the Slip’s bell rang
twice, to carry the wood on to the pontoons so thaj the
boat might be cast off again at the first hint of light.
After their dinner the pnests gathered in the common-
room. The captain yvas the only one to wear a soutane.
One father, with a trim pointed beard, dressed m an
opeibkhalS shirt, reminded the passenger of a young
* officer of the Foreign Legion he Ifad once known in
the East whose recklessness and ill-discipline had led
to an heroic and wasteful death; another of the
fathers might have been taken for a professor of
economics, a third for a lawyer, a fourth for a doctor,
but the too^easy laughter, the exaggerated excitement
over »omc simple game of cards with matches for
stales had the innocence and immaturity of isolation
- the innocence of explorers maroonecf on an ice-cap
or of men imprisoned by a war which has long passed
out of hearing. 1 hey turned the radio on for the even-
ing news, but this was just habit, the imitation of an
act performed years ago for a motive they no longer

C embcred clearly; they were not interested in the
ions and changing cabinets of Europe, they were
ply interested in the riots a few “hundred miles
away on the other side of the river, and the passenger
becavie aware of his own safety among them - they
would ask no intrusive questions. He was again re-
minded of the Foreign Legion. If he had beeji a*
murderer escaping from justice, not one would have
had the curiosity to probe his secret wound.

And yet - he could not tell why - their laughter
irritated him, like ajioify child or a disc ofjaz*. He was
vexed by the pleasure which they took in small things

9

- even in the bottle of whisky he had brought for them
from the boat. Those who marry God, he thought, can
become domelticated too - it’s just as hum v drum a
marriage as all the others. The word “Love” means a
formal touch of the lips as in the ceremony of the Mass,
and “Ave t Maria” like “dearest” is a phrase to open a
letter. This marriage like the world’s marriages was
held together by habits and tastes shared in common
between God an<3 themselves -it was God’S tastewto be
worshipped and their taste to worship, but only at
stated hours like a suburban embrace on a Saturday
night.

The laughter rose higher.* The captain had been
caught cheating, and now each priest in turn»tried to
outdo his neighbour by stealing matches, making sur-
reptitious discards, calling the wrong suit - the game,
like so many children’s games, was about to reac^i an
end in chaos, *and would there be tears before bed?
The passenger got impatiently up and walked away
from them around the dreary common-room 4 The
face ot the new Pope, looking like an eccentric head-
master, stared at him from the wall. On top of a
chocolate-coloured dresser lay a few romans f/oliciers
•nd a stock of missionary journals. He opened one:
it reminded him of a school magazine. There was
an account of a football match at 9 . place called Oboko
and an old boy was writing the first instalmenfrof an
essay called “A Holiday in Europe.” A wall-calendar
*bore the photograph of another mission : there was the
sai&e kind of hideous church built of unsuitable brick
beside a verandahed priest’s house. Perhaps it was fc
rival school. Grouped in front of the buildings were
the fathers: they were laughing ,too. The passenger
wondered when it was that he had first begun to

io

detest laughter like a bad smell.

He Vajked out into the moonlit dark. Even at
night the air was so humid that it bft>ke upon the
cheek like tiny beads of rain. Some candles f till
burned on the pontoons^and a torch moved along the
upper deck, showing him where the boat was moored.
He left the river ijnd found a rough track which
started behind the classrooms and If d towards what
geogsaphefs might have called the centre of Africa.

* He followed it a short way, for no reason that he knew,
guided by the light of moon and stars; ahead of him
he could hear a kind of music. The track brought
him into a village and* out the other side. The in-
habitants were awake, perhaps because the moon was
full : if so they had marked its exact state better than
his diary. Men were beating on old tins they had
salvaged from the mission, tins of sardines and Heinz
beans and plum jam, and someone was playing a kind
of home-made hnrp. Faces peered at him from behind
small^fires. An old woman danced awkwardly, crack-
ing her hips under a piece of sacking, and againlie felt
taunted by the innocence of the laughter. They were
not laughing at him, they were laughing with each
other, and he was abandoned, as he had been in tho
living-room of the seminary, to his own region where
laughter was like the unknown syllables of an enemy
tongife. It was a very poor vilage: the thatch of the
clay huts hacj been gnawed away a long time since by
rats and rain, and the women wore only old cloyts,
which had once seen service for sugar or grain, around
their waists. He recognised them as pygmoids -
bastard descendants of the true pygmies. They were
not a powerful cnegiy.^He turned and wentoback to
the seminary.

1 1

The room was empty, the card-game had broken
up, and he passed to his bedroom. He had become so
accustomed tcf the small cabin that he felt defenceless
in tj^is vast space which held only a washstand with a
jug, basin and glass, a chair^ a narrow bed under a
mosquito-net, and a bottle of boiled water on the
floor. One of the fathers, who \^as presumably the
Superior, knocked and came in. He said, “Is there
anything you want?”

“Nothing. I Wknt nothing.” He nearly added,
“That is my trouble.”

The Superior looked in the jug to see whether it
was full. “You will find the water very brown,” he
said, “but it is quite clean.” He lifted the lid of a soap-
dish to assure himself that the soap had not been
forgotten. A brand new orange tablet lay there.

“Lifebuoy,” the Superior said proudly.

“I haven’t'used Lifebuoy,” the passenger said,
“since I was a child.”

“Many people say it is good for prickly heat. # But
I never suffer from that.”

Suddenly the passenger found himself unable any
longer not to speak. He said, “Nor I. I suffer from
nothing. I no longer know what suffering is. I have
come to an end of all that too.”

“Too?”

“Like all the rest. To the end of everything.’^

The Superior turned away from him without
'curiosity. He said, “Oh well, you know, suffering is
something which will always be provided when it is
required. Sleep well. I will call you at five.”

12

Chapter Two

i

Doctor Colfn examined the record of the man’s tests

for six months now the search for Ihe leprosy bacilli
in smears taken from the skin had shown a negative
result. The African who stood before him with a staff
under his shoulder had 'lost all his toes and fingers.
Doctor 6olin said, “Excellent. You are cured.”

The man<ook a step or two nearer to the doctor’s
desk. His todess feet looked like rods and when he
walked it was as though he were engaged in pounding
the path flat. He said with apprehension, “Must I go
away from here ?”

Doctor Colin looked at the stump the man held out
like apiece of wood which had been roughly carved
into the beginnings of a human hand. There was a rule
that th« leproserie should take contagious cases only:
the cured had to return to their villages or, if it were*
possible, continue what treatment was necessary as
out-patients in the hospital at Luc, the provincial
capital!. But Luc was many days away whether by road
or river. C0H9 said, “It would be hard for you to find
work outside. I will see what can be done for you. po
and speak to the sisters.” The stump seemed useless,
blit it was extraordinary what a mutilated hand
could be taught to doj there was one man in the
leproserie without fingers who had been tavght to
knit as well as any sister. But even success could be

13

saddening, for it showed the value of the (material
they had so often to discard. For fifteen # ye&rs the
doctor had efreamt of a day when he would have
fuiyls available for constructing special tools to fit
each mutilation, but now he hadn’t money enough
even to provide decent mattresses in the hospital.

“ghat’s your name?” he askefl.

“Deo Gratias.”

Impatiently the doctor called out the n&t number.

It was a young woman with palsied fingers - a
claw-hand. The doctor tried to flex her fingers, but
she winced with the stab of the nerves, though she
continued to smile with a kind of brave coquetry as
though she thought in that way she might induce him
to spare her further pain. She had made up her mouth
with a mauve lipstick which went badly with the
black skin, and her right breast was exposed, for she
had been feeding her baby on the dispensary step. Her
arm was scarred for half its length where the doctor
had made an incision to release the ulnar nerve jvhich
had been strangled by its sheath. Now the gif 1 was
able with an effort to move her fingers a further
degree. The doctor wrote on her card, for the»sisters’
tittention, “Paraffin wax” and turned to the next
patient.

In fifteen years Doctor Colin had only known two
days hotter than this one. Even the African^ were
feeling the heat, and half the usual number of patients
hajl come to the dispensary. There was no fan, and
Dr. Colin worked below a make-shift awning on the
verandah : a table, a hard wooden chair, and behinti
him the little office that he dreaded to enter because
of the insufficient ventilation.*Hi$ filing cabinets were
there, and the steel was hot to the touch.

Patient after patient exposed his body to him; in all
the years he had never become quite accustomed to
the sweet gangrenous smell of certain ffeprous skins,
and it had become to him the smell of Africa. He ran
his fingers over the diseased surface, and made nis
notes almost mechanically. The notes had small value,
but his fingers, he kpew, gave the patients comfort:
they realised that they were not untouchable, flow
that a^cureYiad been f&und for the physical disease,
4ie had always to remember that leprosy remained a
psychological problem.

From the river Dr. Colin heard the sound of a
ship’s bell. The Superior*passed by the dispensary on
his bicycle, riding towards the beach. He waved, and
the doctor raised his hand in answer. It was probably
the day lor the Otraco boat which was long overdue.
It wa$ supposed to call once a fortnight with mail, but
they could never depend on it, for it was flelayed more
often than not by unexpected cargo or by a faulty

pipe - . .

A baby began to cry and immediately like dogs ail

the babies around the dispensary started to howl to-
gether. /‘Henri, ” Doctor Colin called; his young
African dispenser rapped out a phrase in his native «
tongue - “Babies to the breast” and instantaneously
peace returned. At tvyelve- thirty the doctor broke off
for thesday. In the little hot office he wiped his hands
with spirit.

He walked (down towards the beach. He had been
expecting a book to be sent him from Europe a
Japanese Atlas of Leprosy, and perhaps it had come
with the mail. The long street of the leper village led
towards the river: sijialP two-roomed houses built of
brick with mud huts in the yards behind. When he had

15

arrived fifteen years ago there had been only the mud
huts - now they served as kitchens, and yet still when
anyone was sfoout to die, he would retire into the yard.
Hf couldn’t die peacefully in a room furnished with a
radio-set and a picture of the latest Pope ; he was pre-
pared to die only where his ancestors had died, in the
darkness surrounded by the sn^ell of dry mud and
leaves. In the third yard on the left an old man was
dying now, sitting in a battered deckchair, inside the
shadow of the kitchen-door.

Beyond the village, just before the river came into
sight, the ground was being cleared for what would
one day be the new hospital-block. A gang of lepers
was pounding the last square yards supegvised by
Father Joseph, who worked beside them, beating
away himself at the ground in his old khaki pants and
a soft hat which looked as though it had been washed
up on the bdkch many years ago.

“Otraco?” Doctor Colin called out to him.

“No, the Bishop’s boat,” Father Joseph replied, and
he paced away, feeling the ground with his f«et. He
had long ago caught the African habit of speaking as
he moved, with his back turned, and his voicahad the
•high African inflection. “They say there’s a passenger
on board.” ’

“A passenger?”

Doctor Colin came into sight of the funnel where it
stuck up between the long avenue of logs that had
been cut ready for fuel. A man was walking up the
avenue towards him. He raised his hat, a man of his
own age, in the late fifties with a grizzled morning
stubble, weiring a crumpled tropical suit. “My name
is Quarry,” he introduced 'hiryself, speaking in an
accent which Colin could not quite place as French or

16

Flemish a«y more than he could immediately identify
the nationality of the name.

“Dr. Cofin,” he said. “Are you stoppftig here?”

“The boat goes no further,” the man answered, f as
if that were indeed the only explanation.

2

Once a mon^h Doctor fcolin and the Superior went
Into a confidential huddle over figures. The support of
the leproserie was the responsibility of the Order; the
doctor’s salary and the cost of medicine were paid by
the State. The State was the richer and the more un-
willing partner, and the doctor made every effort to
shift what burden he could from the Order. In the
struggle witn the common enemy the two of them had
become close friends - Doctor Colin was even known
occasionally to attend Mass, though he /!ad long ago,
before he had come to this continent of misery and
heat, lost faith in any god that a priest would have
recognised. The only trouble the Superior ever caused
him was with the cheroot which the priest was never
withoutf except when saying Mass and in sleep; the
cheroots were strong and Dr. Colin’s quarters
cramped, and the ash always found a Vay between
his pamphlets and reports. Now he had to shake the
ash off the accounts he had prepared for the chief
medical officer in Luc; in them he had deftly and un-
obtrusively transferred to the State the price of a new
clock and three mosquito-nets for the mission.

*‘I am sorry,” the Superior apologised, dropping
yet more ash onto an open page of the Atlas of
Leprosy. The thick £rifht colours and the swirling
designs resembled the reproduction of a Van Gogh

17

landscape, and the doctor had been turning the pages
with a purely aesthetic pleasure before the Superior
joined him.*‘Really I am impossible,” tfie Superior
said, brushing at the page. "Worse than usual, but
then I’ve had a visit from M. Rycker. The man upsets
me.” ,

"What did he want ?”

*Oh, he wanted to find out about our visitor. And
of course he was very ready to drink*our visitor’s
whisky.”

"Was it worth three days’ journey ?”

“Well, at least he got the whisky. He said the road
had been impossible for four weeks and he had been
starved of intellectual conversation.”

"How is his wife - and the plantation?”

“Rycker seeks > information. He never gives it.
And he was anxious to discuss his spiritual«,prob-
lems.”

"I would never have guessed he had any.”

"When a man has nothing else to be proud of,” the
Superior said, "he is proud of his spiritual problems.
After two whiskies he began to talk to me about
Grace.”

“What did you do?”

“I lent hiift a book. He won’t read it, of course. He
knows all the answers - six yeaij wasted in a seminary
can do a lot of harm. What he really wan te 4* was to
discover who Querry might be, where he came from
and how long he was going to stay. I would have been
tempted to tell him if I had known the answer myself.
Luckily Rycker is afraid of lepers, and Qucrry’s bay
happened to come in. Why did you give Querry Deo
Gratias?”

“He’s cured, but he’s a burnt-out case, and I don’t

18

want to send him away. He can sweep a floor and m#ke
a bed withgut fingers or toes.”

“Our visitors are sometimes fastidious?”

“I assure you Querry doesn’t mind. In fact he askgd
for him. Deo Gratias was § the first leper whom he saw
when he came off the boat. Of course I told him the
man was cured.” 9

“Deo Gratias brought me a note* I don’t think
Rycker likeS me touching it. I noticed that he
didn’t shake hands with me when &e said goodbye.
What strange ideas people have about leprosy,
doctor.”

“They learn it from th£ Bible. Like sex.”

“It’s a pity people pick and choose what they learn
from the Bibk,” the Superior said, trying to knock the
enefof his cheroot into the ashtray. But he was always
doomed to miss.

“What do you think of Querry, father P^Why do you
think he’s here

“I’n^ too busy to pry into a man’s motives. % I’ve
given Him a room and a bed. One more mouth to feed
is not an embarrassment. And to do him justice he
seemed tery ready to help - if there were any help
that he was capable of giving. Perhaps he is only
looking for somewhere quiet to rest in.”

“Few people would«choose a leproserie as a holiday
resort. •When he asked me for Deo Gratias I was
afraid for a mpment that we might have a leprophil
on our hands.”

“A leprophil ? Am I a leprophil ?”

#< No, father. You are here under obedience. But you
know very well that leprophils exist, though I daresay
they are more often *vomen than men. Sch\*eitzer
seems to attract them. They would rather wash the

19

feet with their hair like the woman in the gospel than
clean them with something more antiseptic. Some-
times I wofider whether Damien was a leprophil.
TJicre was no need for him to become a leper in order
to serve them well. A few elementary precautions - 1
wouldn’t*be a better doctor without my fingers, would

I?”

1 * I,

“I don’t finest very rewarding looking for motives.
Querry does no harm.”

“The second cfay he was here, I took him to the hos-
pital. I wanted to test his reactions. They were quite
normal ones - nausea not attraction. I had to give him
a whiff of ether.” '

“I’m not as suspicious of leprophils as you are,
doctor. There are people who love and embrace
poverty. Is that so'bad ? Do we have to invent a word
ending in phil for them?”

“The leprophil makes a bad nurse and ends by
joining the patients.”

“9ut all the same, doctor, you’ve said it ypurself,
leprosy is a psychological problem. It may be very
valuable for the leper to feel loved.”

“A patient can always detect whether he is loved or
whether it is only his leprosy which is loved. I don’t
want leprosy loved. I want it eliminated. There are
fifteen million cases in the world. We don’t want to
waste time with neurotics, father.”

“I wish you had a little time to waste,. You work too
hard.”

*But Doctor Colin was not listening. He said, “You
remember $iat little leproserie in the bush that the
nuns ran. When D.D.S. was discovered to be a cure,
they were soon reduced to fialfi a dozen patients. Do
you know what one of the nuns said to me ? 'It’s ter-

20

rible, doctor. Soon we’ll have no lepers at all.* There
surely was a leprophil.”

“Poor woman,” the Superior said. “Vou don’t see
the other side.”

“What other side ?” *

“An old maid, without imagination, anxious to do
good, to be of use. There aren’t so many places in the
world for people like that. And the practice of^ier
vocation is being taken away from her by the weekly
doses of D.D.S. tablets.”

“I thought you didn’t look for motives.”

“Oh, mine’s a very superficial reading like your own
diagnosis, doctor. But it Would be a good thing for all
of us if wo were even more superficial. There’s no real
harm in a superficial judgment, but if I begin to probe
into what hes behind that desire to be of use, oh well,
I might find some terrible things, and we are all
tempted to stop when we reach that poiht. Yet if we
dug further, who knows? - the terrible too might be
only a # fcw skins deep. Anyway it’s safer to make
superficial judgments. They can always be shrugged
off. Even by the victims.”

“And*Querry? What of him? Superficially speak-
ing, of course.”

21

Fart II

Chapter One

i

In an unfamiliar region ft is always necessary for the
stranger to begin at once to construct the familiar,
with a photograph perhaps, or a row of books if they
are all that he has brought with him from the past.
Querry had no photographs and no books except his
diary. Th$ first morning when he was woken at six by
the sound of^prayers from the chapel next door, he
felt the panic of complete abandonment. He lay on
his baak listening to the pious chant, and if there had
been some magic power in his signet ring, he would
have twisted it and asked whatever djinn answered
him to be transferred again to that place which
for wa^t of a better name he called his home.* But
magic, if such a thing existed at all, was more likely
to lie in *he rhythmical and incomprehensible chant
next door. It reminded him, like the smell of a medi-
cine, of an illness from which he had lofig recovered.
He blamed himself fojr not realising that the area of
leprosytwas also the area of this other sickness. He had
expected doctors and nurses: he had forgotten that he
would find priests and nuns.

Deo Gratias was knocking on the door. Queny
heard the scrape of his stump as it attempted to Faise
the latch. A pail of water hung on his wrist like a coat
on a cloakroom-knoj). fQuerry had asked Qpctor
Colin before engaging him whether he suffered pain,

25

and the doctor had reassured him, answering that
mutilation was the alternative to pain. It was the pal-
sied with their stiffened fingers and strangled nerves
who suffered - suffered almost beyond bearing (you
Heard them sometimes crying in the night), but the
suffering was in some sort h protection against muti-
lation. Querry did not suffer, lying on his back in bed,
fleking his fingers.

And so from' the first morrtlng he set himself to build
a routine, the familiar within the unfamiliar. It was
the condition of survival. Every morning at seven he
breakfasted with the fathers. They drifted into their
commonroom from whatever task they had been en-
gaged on for the last hour, since the charting had
ceased. Father Paul and Brother Philippe was in
charge of the dynamo which supplied electricity to
the Mission and the leper village; Father Jc^n had
been saying Mass at the nuns’ house; Father Joseph
had already started the labourers to work on clearing
the ground for the new hospital ; Father Thomas, with
eyes sunk like stones in the pale clay of his face,
swallowed his coffee in a hurry, like a nauseating
medicine, and was off to superintend the twp schools.
Brother Philippe sat silent, taking no part in any con-
versation: he was older than the fathers, he could
speak nothing but Flemish and r he had the kind of face
which seems worn away by weather and patience. As
the faces began to develop features as negatives do in a
hypo-bath, Querry separated himself all the more from
t£ieir company. He was afraid of the questions they
might ask, until he began to realise that, like the priests
in the seminary on the river, they were going to ask
non^ of any importance. *Zv^n the questions they
found necessary were phrased like statements - “On

26

Sundays 9 bus calls here at six-thirty if you wish to go
to Mass,” - and Querry was not required to answer
that he had given up attending Mas# more than
twenty years before. His absence was never remarkqfi.

After breakfast he would take a book he had bor-
rowed from the doctor’s small library and go down to
the bank of the river. It had widened out in this reach
and was nearly a mile across. An old tin barge, rusty
with long disuse, enabled him to avoid the ants; and
Hie sat there until the sun, soon after ftine, became too
high for comfort. Sometimes he read, sometimes he
simply watched the steady khaki flow of the stream,
which carried little islands of grass and water jacinth
endlessly down at the pace of crawling taxis, out of the
heart of Africa, towards the far-off sea.

On the other shore the great trees, with roots above
the grftund like the ribs of a half-built ship, stood out
over the green jungle wall, brown at the top like
stale cauliflowers. The cold grey trunks, unbroken by
branches, curved a little this way and a little that,
giving them a kind of reptilian life. Porcelain-white
birds stood on the backs of coffee-coloured cows, and
once for « whole hour he watched a family who sat in
a pirogue by the bank doing nothing ; the mother wore
a bright yellow dress, the man, wrinklecf like bark, sat
bent over a paddle he never used, and a girl with a
baby oft her lap smiled and smiled like an open piano.
When it was too hot to sit any longer in the sunlight
he joined the doctor at the hospital or the dispensary,
and when that was over half the day had safely gonfc.
He no longer felt nausea from anything he saw, and
the bottle of ether was not required. After a month he
spoke to the ddetor.

“You are very short-handed, aren’t you, for deal-
27

ing with eight hundred people?”

"Yes.”

“If I could be of any use to you - 1 know I am not
tiffined ...”

“You will be leaving soon, won’t you?”

“I have no plans.”

“Have you any knowledge of electro-therapy?”
A No.”

“You could be trained, if*you were interested. Six
months in Europe.”

“I don’t want to return to Europe,” Querry said.

“Never?”

“Never. I am afraid to rettim.” The phrase sounded
in his own ears melodramatic and he tried to with-
draw it. “I don’t mean afraid. Just for this reason and
that.”

The doctor ran his fingers over the patch^J on a
child’s back*. To the unpractised eye the child looked
perfectly healthy. “This is going to be a bad case,”
Doctor Colin said. “Feel this.” 4

Querry’s hesitation was no more perceptible than
the leprosy. At first his fingers detected nothing, but
then they stumbled on places where the child’s skin
seemed to have grown an extra layer. “Have you no
kind of electrical knowledge ?”

1 m sorry,

“Because I’m expecting some apparatus from
Europe. It’s long overdue. With it I will be able to
take the temperature of the skin simultaneously in
twenty places. You can’t detect it with your fingers,
but this nodule here is warmer than the skin arotftid
it. I hope one day to be able to forestall a patch. They
are frying that in India now.”i

“You are suggesting things too complicated for me,”

28

Querry said. “I’m a man of one trade, one talent.”

“What trade is that?” the doctor asked. “We are a
city in miniature here, and there are fAv trades for
which we could not find a place.” He looked f.t
Querry with sudden suspicion. “You are not a
writer, are you? There’s no room for a writer here.
We want to work in peace. We don’t want the press
of the world discovering us as tjjey discovered
Schwdtzer.’*

* “I’m not a writer.”

“Or a photographer ? The lepers here are not going
to be exhibits in any horror museum.”

“I’m not a photographfer. Believe me I want peace
as much as you do. If the boat had gone any further, I
would not have landed here.”

“Then tell me what your trade is, and we will fit
you in?”

“I have abandoned it,” Querry stSd. A sister
passed on a bicycle busy about something. “Is there
nothing simple I can do to earn my keep?” he agked.
“Bandaging? I’ve had no training there either, but it
can’t be difficult to learn. Surely there has to be some-
one who*washes the bandages. I could release a more
valuable worker.”

“That is the sisters’ province. My life here would
not be worth living if I interfered with their arrange-
ments. &re you feeling restless ? Perhaps next time the
boat calls you could go back to the capital. There are
plenty of opportunities in Luc.”

“I am never going to return,” Querry said.

“In that case you had better warn the fathers,” the
doctor said with irony. He called to the dispenser,
“That’s enough. No more this morning.” While he
washed his hands in spirits he took a look at Querry

29

over his shoulder. The dispenser was shepherding the
lepers out and they were alone. He saidj “Are you
wanted by tlfte police ? You needn’t be afraid of telling
mp - or any of us. You’ll find a leproserie just as safe
as the Foreign Legion.”

“No. L’ve committed no crime. I assure you there’s
nothing of interest in my case. I have retired, that’s all.
If tfie fathers don’t want me here, I can always go on.”

“You’ve saicf it yourself - the boat goes iK> fur-
ther.”

“There’s the road.”

“Yes. In one direction. The way you came. It’s not
often open though. This is the season of rains.”

“There are always my feet,” Querry said*

Colin looked for a smile, but there was none on
Querry’s face. He Said, “If you really want to help me
and you don’t mind a rough journey you miglh take
the second tAick to Luc. The boat may not be back for
weeks. My new apparatus should have arrived by now
in the town. It will take you about eight days there and
back - if you are lucky. Will you go? It will mean
sleeping in the bush, and if the ferries are not working
you’ll have to return. You can hardly call it u road,”
he went on; he was determined that the Superior
should not accuse him of persuading Querry to go.
“It’s only if you want to help ■ . . you can see how
impossible it is for any of us. We can’t be spaifcd.”

“Of course. I’ll start right away.”

It occurred to the doctor that perhaps here too was
a lnan under obedience, but not to any divine or civil
authority, only to whatever wind might blow. He
said, “You could pick up some frozen vegetables too
and stme steak. The fathers ai?d I could do with a
change of diet. There’s a cold storage at Luc. Tell Deo

30

Gratias tcrfetch a camp-bed from my place. If you put
a bicycle in the back you could spend the first night at
the Perrins*, but you can’t reach them bjf truck. They
are down by the river. Then there are the Chantyis
about eight hours further on - unless they’ve gone
home, I can’t remember. And last of all there’s
always Rycker at the second ferry, about six hours
from Luc. You’d get a warm welcomg from him, I’m
sure of that.’*

“I’d rather sleep in the lorry,” Querry said. “I’m
not a sociable man.”

“I warn you, it’s not an easy journey. And we could
always wait for the boat.’ 4

He paused a while for Querry to answer, but all
that Querry found to say was “I shall be glad to be of
use.” The distrust between them deadened inter-
courstf; it seemed to the doctor that the only sen-
tences he could find to speak with any safety had been
preserved for a long time in ajar in the dispensary and
smelt of formaldehyde.

2

The river drew a great bow through the bush, and
generations of administrators, who hacl tried to cut
across the arc with atf*oad from the regional capital
of Luc, f had been defeated by the forest and the rain.
The rain formed quagmires and swelled the tributary
streams until the ferries were unusable, while at long
intervals, spaced like a layer of geological time, tHe
fofest dropped trees across the way. In the deep bush
trees grew unnoticeably old through centuries and
here and there one presently died, lying half collapsed
for a while in the ropy arms of the lianas until sooner

3i

or later they gently lowered the corpse into the only
space large enough to receive it, and that was the road,
narrow like a coffin or a grave. There were no hearses
to, drag the corpse away; if it was to be removed at all
it could only be by fire.

During the rains no one ever tried to use the road;
a few colons in the forest would then be completely
isolated unless, by bicycle, they could reach the river
and camp there in a fisherman’s village* until a boat
came. Then, when the rains were over, weeks had
still to pass before the local government could spare the
men to build the necessary fires and clear the road.
After a few years of complete neglect the road would
have disappeared completely and forever. STie forest
would soon convert it to a surface scrawl, like the first
scratches on a wkll of early man, and there would
remain then reptiles, insects, a few birds and priVnates,
and perhapf the pygmoids - the only human beings
in the forest who had the capacity to survive without
a road.

The first night Querry stopped the truck at a turn
in the road where a track led off towards the Perrins’
plantation. He opened a tin of soup and«a tin of
Frankfurters, while Deo Gratias put up a bed for him
in the back of the truck and lit the paraffin-cooker. He
offered to share his food with Dep Gratias, but the man
had some mess of his own ready prepared iA a pot
wrapped in an old rag, and the two of them sat in
silence with the truck between them as though they
wire in separate rooms. When the meal was over
Querry moved round the bonnet with the intention*of
saying something to Deo Gradas, but the “boy” by
rising«to his feet made the occasion as formal as though
Querry had entered his hut in the village, and the

32

words, whatever they were, died before they had
been spoken. If the boy had possessed an ordinary
name, Pierre, Jean, Marc, it might hare been pos-
sible to begin some simple sentence in French, bjit
Deo Gratias - the absurd name stuck on Querry’s
tongue.

He walked a little way from the truck, because he
knew how far he was from sleep, up the path which*led
eventually to the river of to the Perrins, and he heard
*the thud of Deo Gratias’s feet behincf him. Perhaps he
had followed with the idea of protecting him or per-
haps because he feared to be left alone in the dark
beside the truck. Querpy turned with impatience
because he had no wish for company, and there the
man stood on his two rounded toeless feet, supported
on his stall, like something which had grown on that
spot afes ago and to which people on one special day
made offerings.

“Is this the path to the Perrins ?”

The man said yes, but Querry guessed it was what
Africans always replied to a question couched like
that. He went back to the truck and lay down on the
camp-bed. He could hear Deo Gratias settling him-
self for the night under the belly of the truck, and he
lay on his back, staring up at where the stars ought to
have been visible, but the gauze of the mosquito-net
obscured them. As usual there was no silence. Silence
belonged to cities. He dreamt of a girl whom he had
once known and thought he loved. She came to him in
tears because she had broken a vase which she valued,
and she became angry with him because he didn’t
share her suffering. She struck him in the face, but he
felt the blow no moro^hJn a dab of butter against his
cheek. He said, “I am sorry, I am too far gone, I

33

can't feel at all, I am a leper.” As he explained his
sickness to her he awoke.

This was i specimen of his days and nights. He had
np trouble beyond the boredom of the bush. The fer-
ries worked ; the rivers were not in flood, in spite of the
rain which came torrentially down on their last
nigjht. Deo Gratias made a tent over the back of the
truck with a ground-sheet and lay down himself as he
had done every night in the shelter of the chassis’. Then
the sun was out hgain and the track became a road a
few miles out of Luc.

3 *

They searched a long time for the doctor’s apparatus
before they found a clue. The cargo-department of
Otraco knew nothing of it and suggested the ciWoms,
which was nb more than a wooden hut by a jetty in the
tiny river port, where bat-eared dogs yapped and ran.
The customs were uninterested and uncooperative, so
that Querry had to dig out the European controller
who was having an after-lunch siesta in a block of blue
and pink modern flats by a little public garden where
no one sat on the hot cement benches. The door of the
apartment was opened by an African woman, tousled
and sleepy, who looked as though she had been
sharing the controller’s siesta. The controller* was an
elderly Fleming who spoke very little French. The
pouches under his eyes were like purses that con-
tained the smuggled memories of a disappointing
life. Querry had already become so accustomed to the
bush-life that this man seemed to belong to another
age and race than his own. 1 he. commercial calendar
on the wall with a coloured reproduction of a painting

34

by Vermfer, the triptych of wife and children on the
locked piano, and a portrait of the man himself in a
uniform of antique cut belonging to an* antique war
were like the deposits of a dead culture. They couldjje
dated accurately, but no research would disclose the
emotions that had once been attached to them.

The controller was very cordial and confused, as
though he were anxious to hide with hospitality some
sccrefof his siesta; he had forgotten to do up his flies.
‘He invited Querry to sit down antf take a glass, but
when he heard that Querry had come from the lepro-
serie he became restless and anxious, eyeing the chair
on which Querry sat. Perhaps he expected to see the
bacilli ofdeprosy burrowing into the upholstery. He
knew nothing, he said, of any apparatus and sug-
gested that it might be at the cathedral. When Querry
stopped on the landing outside he could hear the tap
running in the bathroom. The controller was ob-
viously disinfecting his hands.

Trug enough the apparatus some time ago had
been lodged at the cathedral, although the pnest in
charge, who had assumed the crates contained a holy
statue of books for the father’s library, at first denied
all knowledge. They had gone off by the last Otraco «
boat and were somewhere stuck on the'river. Querry
drove to the cold storage. The hour of siesta was over,
and h£ had to queue for string-beans.

The high vexed colonial voices, each angry about
something different, rose around him, competing for
attention. It seemed to him for a moment that he vfas
b4ck in Europe, and his shoulders instinctively hun-
ched through fear of recognition. In the crowded
store he realised how*on*the river and in the streets of
the leproserie there had been a measure of peace.

35

“But you simply must have potatoes,” a« woman’s
voice was saying. "How dare you deny it ? They came
in on yesterday’s plane. The pilot told me.” She was
obviously playing her last card, when she appealed to
the European manager. "I am expecting the Gover-
nor to dinner.” Surreptitiously the potatoes emerged,
ready wrapped in cellophane.

A voice said, “You are Querry, aren’t you?”

He turned, ’l'he man who 1 spoke to liim was tall,
stooping and overgrown. He was like the kind of
plant people put in bathrooms, reared on humidity,
shooting too high. He had a small black moustache
like a smear of city soot and his face was narrow and
flat and endless, like an illustration of the lav that two
parallel lines never meet. He put a hot restless hand on
Querry’s arm. “My name is Rycker. I missed you the
other day when I called at the leproserie. H<5w did
you get over*nere ? Is a boat in?”

“I came by truck.”

“You were fortunate to get through. You must stay
a nigfit at my place on your way home.”

“I have to get back to the leproserie.”

“They can do without you, M. Querry jr They’-ll
have to do without you. After last night’s rain
there’ll be too* much water for the ferry. Why are you
waiting here ?”

“I only wanted some haricots verts and some 1 . . . ”

“Boy! Some haricots verts for this master. You know
you have to shout at them a little. They understand
nothing else. The only alternative to staying with us is
to remain here till the water goes down, and I can
assure you, you won’t like the hotel. This is a very
provincial town. Nothing hefre (o interest a man like
you. You are the Querry, aren’t you ?” and Rycker’s

36

mouth shut trapwise, while his eyes gleamed roguishly
like a detective’s,

“I don*t know what you mean.”

“We don’t all live quite out of the world like^the
fathers and our dubious friend the doctor. Of course
this is a bit of a desert, but all the same one manages -
somehow - to keep in touch. Two dozen lagers^boy,
and make i # t quick. Ofcourse I shal] respect your in-
cogiflto. I will say nothing. You can trust me not to
betray a guest. You’ll be far safer at my place than at
the hotel. Only myself and my wife. As a matter of
fact it was my wife who said to me, ‘Do you suppose he
can possibly be the Querry?’ ”

“YouVe made a mistake.”

“Oh no, I haven’t. I can show you a photograph
wherj you come to my house - in one of the papers that
lie around in case they may prove useful. Useful ! This
one certainly has, hasn’t it, because* otherwise we
would have thought you were only a relation of
Quer/y’s or that the name was pure coincidence, for
who would expect to find the Querry holed up in a
leproserie in the bush ? I have to admit I am somewhat
curiouf. But you can trust me, trust me all the way. I
have serious enough problems of my own, so I can*
sympathise with those of another man. I’ve buried
myself too. We’d belter go outside, for in a little town
like tfiis even the wails have ears.”

“I’m afraid .... they are expecting me to
return ...”

“God rules the weather. I assure you, M. QudTy,
fou have no choice.”

37

Chapter Two

i

House and factory overlooked the ferry ; *no situation
could have beeii better chosen for a man with
Rycker’s devouring curiosity. It was impossible for
anyone to use the road that led from the town to the
interior without passing the two wide windows which
were like the lenses of a pair of binoculars trained on
the river. They drove under the deep blue shadows
of the palm trees towards the river; Rycker’s chauf-
feur and Deo Gratias followed in Querry’s lorry.

“You see, M. Querry, how it is. The river’s far too
high. Not a chance to pass tonight. Who knows
whether even tomorrow . . .? So we have time for

f. •

some interesting talks, you and I.”

As they drove through the yard of the factory,
among the huge boilers abandoned to rust,»a smell
4 like stale margarine lay heavily around them. A blast
of hot air struck from an open doorway, and the
reflection of a furnace billowed into the waning light.
“To you, of course,” Rycker said, “accustoiAed to
the factories of the West, this must appear a bit ram-
1 shackle. Though I can’t remember whether you ever
wefre closely concerned with any factories.”

“No.”

“There were so many spheres in which the Querry
led th®way.”

He recurred again and again to the word “the” as

38

though it were a title of nobility.

“The place functions,” he said as the car bumped
among the boilers, “it functions in its«ugly way. We
waste nothing. When we finish with the nut there’s
nothing left. Nothing. We’ve crushed out the oil, he
said with relish rolling the r, “and as for the husk -
into the furnace with it. We don’t need any other fuel
to keep the furnaces alive.”

They left the two cars in the yard and walked over
to the house. “Marie, Marie,” Rydker called, scraping
the mud off his shoes, stamping across the verandah.
“Marie.”

A girl in blue jeans with a pretty unformed face
came quickly round the comer in answer to his call.
Querry was on the point of asking “Your daughter?”
when Ryckcr forestalled him. “My wife,” he said.
“Aifd here, chirie, is the Querry. He tried to deny it,
but I told him we had a photograph.’*

“I am very glad to meet you,” she said. “We will
try to make you comfortable.” Querry had the im-
pression that she had learnt such occasional speeches
by heart from her governess or from a book of eti-
quette! Now she had said her piece she disappeared
as suddenly as she had come; perhaps the school-belj
had rung for class.

“Sit down,” Ricker said. “Marie is fixing the
drinks. You can see I’ve trained her to know what a
man needs.”

“Have you been married long?”

“Two years. I brought her out after my last l*ave.
•In a post like this it’s necessary to have a companion.
You married ?”

“Yes - that is tcysa^ I have been married.^’

“Of course I know you are thinking that she is very

39

young for me. But I look ahead. If you believe in mar-
riage you have to look to the future. I’ve still got
twenty years qf - let’s call it active life ahekd of me,
and what would a woman of thirty be like in twenty
years? A man keeps better in the tropics. Don’t you
agree?”

“I’ve never thought about it. And I don’t yet know
the tfopics.”

“There are erfough problems without sex I*can
assure you. St. Paul wrote, didn’t he, that it was better
to marry than bum. Marie will stay young long
enough to save me from the furnace.” He added
quickly, “Of course I’m only joking. We have to joke,
don’t we, about serious things. At the bottom of my
heart I believe very profoundly in love.” He made
the claim as some men might claim to believe in
fairies.

The steward came along the verandah carrying a
tray and Mme. Rycker followed him. Querry took a
glass and Mme. Rycker stood at his elbow while the
steward poised the syphon - a division of duties.
“Will you tell me how much soda?” Mme. Rycker
asked.

# “And now, my dear, you’ll change into a proper
dress,” Rycker 'said.

Over the whisky he turned agajn to what he called
“Your case.” He had now less the manner* of a
detective than of a counsel who by the natuie of his
■ profession is an accomplice after the fact. “Why are
youihere, Querry?”

“One must be somewhere.”

“All the safne, as I said this morning, no one would
expect fo find you working in £ leproserie.”

“I am not working.”

40

“When* I drove over some weeks ago, the fathers
said that you were at the hospital."

“I was hatching the doctor work. I sfcmd around,
that’s all. There’s nothing I can do.”

“It seems a waste of talent."

“I have no talent.”

Rycker said, “You mustn’t despise us poor provin-
cials."

When the£ had gone into dinner, a*hd after Rycker
~4iad said a short grace, Querry’s hostess spoke again.
She said, “I hope you will be comfortable,” and “Do
you care for salad ?” Her fair hair was streaked and
darkened with sweat and he saw her eyes widen with
apprehension when a black-and-white moth, with
the wing-spread of a bat, swooped across the table.
“You must make yourself at home here,” she said, her
gaze fallowing the moth as it settled like a piece of
lichen on the wall. He wondered whethef she had e\Jer
felt at home herself. She said, “We don’t have many
visitors,” and he was reminded of a child forced to
entertain a caller until her mother returns. She had
changed, between the whisky and the dinner, into a
cotton frock covered with a pattern of autumnal
leaves which was like a memory of Europe.

“Not visitors like the Querry anyway,” Rycker
interrupted her. It w^s as though he had turned off a
knob dn a radio-set which had been tuned in to a
lesson in deportment after he had listened enough.
The sound of the voice was shut off the air, but still,
behind the shy and wary eyes, the phrases were goijig
on for no one to hear. ‘The weather has been a little
hot lately, hasn’t it ? I hope you had a good flight from
Europe.’

Querry said, “Do you like the life here?" The

4 *

question startled her; perhaps the answenwasn't in
her phrase-book “Oh yes,” she said, “yes. It’s very
interesting,”* staring over his shoulder through the
wjndow to where the boilers stood like modern statues
in the floodlit yard ; then she shifted her eyes back to
the moth on the wall and the gecko pointing at his
prey.

‘T etch that photograph, dear,” Rycker said.

“What photograph?”

“The photograph of M. Querry.”

She trailed reluctantly out, making a detour to
avoid the wall where the moth rested and the lizard
pointed, and returned soon with an ancient copy of
Time. Querry remembered the ten years younger face
upon the cover (the issue had coincided with his first
visit to New York). The artist, drawing from a^>hoto-
graph, had romanticised his features. It wasn’t the
face he sawVhen he shaved, but a kind of distant
cousin. It reflected emotions, thoughts, hopes, pro-
fundities that he had certainly expressed to no repor-
ter. 'f he background of the portrait was a building of
glass and steel which might have been taken for a con-
cert-hall, or perhaps even for an orangerie, if a great
cross planted like a belfry outside the door had not
indicated it was a church.

“So you see,” Rycker said, “jve know all.”

“I don’t remember that the article wis very
accurate.”

“I suppose the Government - or the Church -
h»ve commissioned you to do something out here ?”

“No. I’ve retired.”

“I thought a man of your kind never retired.”

“Qh, one comes to an enti, just as soldiers do and
bank-managers.”

48

When die dinner was over the girl left, like a child
after the dessert. “I expect she’s gone to write up her
journal,” Rycker said. “This is a red-letter day for
her, meeting the Querry. She’ll have plenty to ppt
down in it.”

“Does she find much to write?”

“I wouldn’t know. At the beginning I used to take a
quiet look, but she discovered that, and now she locks
it up.*I expect I teased her a little too much. 1 remem-
■Mber one entry : ‘Letter from mother. Poor Maxime has
had five puppies.’ It was the day I was decorated by
the Governor, but she forgot to put anything about
the ceremony.”

“It mutt be a lonely life at her age.”

“Oh, I don’t know. There are a lot of household
duties even in the bush. To be quite frank, I think it’s
a goocf deal more lonely for me. She’s hardly - you can
see it for yourself - an intellectual companion. That’s
one of the disadvantages of marrying a young wife. If
I want to talk about things which really interesUne, I
have tc» drive over to the fathers. A long way to go for
a conversation. Living in the way I do, one has a lot
of time to think things over. I’m a good Catholic, I
hope, but that doesn’t prevent me from having
spiritual problems. A lot of people take’ their religion
lightly, but I had six ^rears when I was a young man
with t&e Jesuits. If a novice master had been less
unfair you wouldn’t have found me here. I gathered
from that article in Time that you are a Catholic too.”

“I’ve retired,” Querry said for the second time. ;

•“Oh come now, one hardly retires from that."

The gecko on the wall leapt at the moth, missed and
lay motionless again, ^h? tiny paws spread on the wjall
like ferns.

43

“To tell you the truth,” Rycker said, “Mind those
fathers at the leproserie an unsatisfactory lot. They are
more interested in electricity and building than in
questions of faith. Ever since I heard you were here
I’ve looked forward to a conversation with an intel-
lectual Catholic.” *

“J wouldn’t call myself that.”

“In the long, years I’ve bpen out htye I’ve been
thrown back on my own thoughts. Some meh can
manage, I suppose, with clock-golf. I can’t. I’ve read a
great deal on the subject of love.”

“Love?”

“The love of God. Agape not Eros.”

“I’m not qualified to talk about that.”

“You underrate yourself,” Rycker replied. He went
to the sideboard and fetched a tray of liqueurs, dis-
turbing the gecko who disappeared behind a repro-
duction of some primitive Flight into Egypt. “A glass
of Cointreau,” Rycker said, “or would you prefer a
Van per Hum ?” Beyond the verandah Qucrry saw a
thin figure in a gold-leafed dress move towards the
river. Perhaps out of doors the moths had lost their
terror. ,

“In the seminary I formed the habit of thinking
more than most men,” Rycker said. “A faith like
ours, when profoundly understood, sets us many
problems. For instance - no, it’s not a mere instance,
I’m jumping to the heart of what really troubles me,
I don’t believe my wife understands the true nature of
Christian marriage.”

Out in tjie darkness there was a plop-plop-pldp.
She must be throwing small_pieces of wood into the
the river.

“It sometimes seems to me,” Rycker said, “that

44

she’s ignorant of almost everything. I find myself won-
dering whether the nuns taught her at all. You saw for
yourself - she doesn’t even cross herself at meals when
I say grace. Ignorance, you know, beyond a certain
point might even invalidate a marriage in canon law.
That’s one of the matters I have tried in vain to dis-
cuss with the fathers. They would much prefer to,talk
about turbines. Now ypu are here . . . ”

“Tm not competent to discuss it,” Querry said. In
"the moments of silence he coulcl hear the river
flooding down.

“At least you listen. The fathers would already have
started talking about the new well they propose to
dig. A wc41, Querry, a well against a human soul.” He
drank down his Van Der Hum and poured himself
another. “They don’t realise . . . just suppose that
we weren’t properly married, she could leave me at
any time, Querry.”

“It’s easy to leave what you call a proper marriage,
too.” .

“Nos no - It’s much more difficult. There are
social pressures - particularly here.”

“If site loves you ...”

“That’s no protection. We are men of the world,
Querry, you and I. A love like that doesn’t last. I tried
to tea^h her the importance of loving God. Because if
she loved Him, she wouldn’t want to offend Him,
would she ? And that would be some security. I have
tried to get her to pray, but I don’t think she knows any
prayers except the Pater Noster and the Ave MaJia.
What prayers do you use, Querry ?”

“None - except occasionally, from habit, in a
moment of danger. ’’/lie added sadly, “Then i pray
for a brown teddy bear.”

45

“You are joking, I know that, but this is very
serious. Have another Cointreau ?”

“What's really worrying you, Rycker ? A man ?”

(Hie girl came back into the light of the lamp which
hung at the corner of the verandah. She was carrying a
roman politier in the Sbie Noire. She gave a whistle
that 4 was scarcely audible, but Rycker heard it. “That
damn puppy,’’ he said. “Shq. loves her puppy more
than she loves God.” Perhaps the Van Der Hufn af-
fected the logic oV his transitions. He said, “I’m not
jealous. It’s not a man I worry about. She hasn’t
enough feeling for that. Sometimes she even refuses
her duties.”

“What duties?”

“Her duties to me. Her married duties.”

“I’ve never thought of those as duties.” t

“You know very well the Church does. No one has
any right to abstain except by mutual consent.”

“I suppose there may be times when she doesn’t
want you.” t

“Then what am I supposed to do ? Have I given up
the priesthood for nothing at all ?”

“I wouldn’t talk to her too much, if I wtre you,

' about loving God, ’’Querry said with reluctance. “She
mightn’t see a parallel between that and your bed.”

“There’s a close parallel for«a Catholic,” Rycker
said rapidly. He put up his hand as though he were
answering a question before his fellow novices. The
bristles of hair between the knuckles were like a row of
little moustaches.

“You seem to be very well up in the subject/’
Querry said.

“At the seminary I always ca\ne out well in moral
theology.”

46

“I doft’t fancy you need me then - or the fathers
either. Y<ju have obviously thought everything out
satisfactorily yourself.* *

“That goes without saying. But sometimes 4ne
needs confirmation and encouragement. You can’t
imagine, M. Querry, what a relief it is to go over these
problems with an educated Catholic.”

“I don’t l(now that 1% would call myself a Catholic.”

Kfycker laughed. “What? The Querry? You can’t
^fool me. You are being too modest. I wonder they
haven’t made you a count of the Holy Roman Empire
- like that Irish singer, what was his name?”

“I don’t know. I am not musical.”

“You should read what they say about you in
Time”

“Qn matters like that Time isn’t necessarily well in-
formed. Would you mind if I went to bed ? I’ll have to
be up early in the morning if I’m to reach the next
ferry before d'irk.”

“Qf course. Though I doubt if you’ll be ^ble to
cross (she river tomorrow.”

Rycker followed him along the verandah to his
room. The darkness was noisy with frogs, and for a
long while after his host had said goodnight and gone,*
they seemed to croak with Rycker’s hollow phrases:
grace^ sacrament: duty: lovti, love, love.

47

Chapter Three

i

“You want to be of use, don’t you ?” the doctor asked
sharply. “You don’t want menial jobs just for the sake
of menial jobs ? You aren’t either a masochist or a
saint.”

“Rycker promised me that he would tell no one.”

“He kept his word for nearly a month. That’s quite
an achievement for Rycker. When he came here the
other day he only told the Superior in confidence.”

“What did the Superior say ?”

“That he wfould listen to nothing in confidence out-
side the confessional.”

Th<; doctor continued to unpack the crate of heavy
electrical apparatus which had arrived at last 'by the
Otraco boat. The lock on the dispensary door was too
insecure for him to trust the apparatus thert, so he
unpacked it on the floor of his living-room. One could
never be certain of the African’s reaction to anything
unfamiliar. In Leopoldville six months before* when
the first riots broke out, the attack had been directed
at the new glass-and-steel hospital intended for
African patients. The most monstrous rumours were
easily planted and often believed. It was a land where
Messiahs died in prison and rose again from the dead:
where walls were said to fall at the touch of finger-
nails sanctified by a little holy du*t. A man whom the
doctor had cured of leprosy wrote him a threatening

48

letter oni!e a month; he really believed that he had
been turned out of the leproserie, not because he was
cured, but*because the doctor had personal designs on
the half acre of ground on which he used to grfw
bananas. It only needed someone, in malice or ignor-
ance, to suggest that the new machines were intended
to torture the patients and some fools would break
into the dispensary anc^ destroy them. Yet in our cen-
tury*you could hardly call them fools. Hola Camp,
^Sharpeville and Algiers had justified all possible belief
in European cruelty.

So it was better, the doctor explained, to keep the
machines out of sight at home until the new hospital
w; s finished. The floor of his sitting-room was covered
with straw from the crates.

“The position of the power-plugs will have to be
decided now.” '1 he doctor asked, “Do you know what
this is ?”

“No.”

“I’ve wanted it for so long,” the doctor said,
touching the metal shape tenderly as a man might
stroke the female flank of one of Rodin’s bronzes.
“Sometimes I despaired. The papers I have had to
fill in, the lies I’ve told. And here at last it it.”

“What does it do?”

“It measures to on$ twenty-thousandth of a second
the reaction of the nerves. One day we are going to be
proud of this leproserie. Of you too and the part you
will have played.”

“I told you I’ve retired.”

“One never retires from a vocation.”

“Oh yes, make no mistake, one does. One comes to
an end.”

“What are you here for then? To make love to a

49

black woman ?”

“No. One comes to an end of that too. Possibly sex
and a vocation are bom and die together Let me roll
bondages or carry buckets. All I want is to pass the
time.”

“I thought you wanted to be of use.”

“Listen,” Querry said and then fell silent.

“i am listening.”

“I don’t deny'my profession once meant a lot to me.
So have women. But the use of what I made was never
important to me. 1 wasn’t a builder of council-houses
or factories. When I made something I made it for my
own pleasure.”

“Is that the way you loved women ?” the doc or
asked, but Querry hardly heard him. He was talking
as a hungry man eats.

“Your vocation is quite a different one, doctor.
You are concerned with people. I wasn’t concerned
with the people who occupied my space - only with
the space.”

“I wouldn’t have trusted your plumbing tl*en.”

“A writer doesn’t write for his readers, does he ? Yet
he has to take elementary precautions all tliessame to
make them comfortable. My interest was in space,
light, proportion. New materials interested me only in
the effect they might have oi^ those three. Wood,
brick, steel, concrete, glass - space seems to alter with
what you use to enclose it. Materials are the architect’s
plot. They are not his motive for work. Only the space
aiyl the light and the proportion. The subject of a
novel is not the plot. Who remembers what hap-
pened to Lucien de Rubemprd in the end ?”

“T<&vo of your churches afre^famous. Didn’t you
care what happened inside them - to people ?”

“The acoustics had to be good of course. The high
altar had to be visible to all. But people hated them.
They said ’they weren't designed for prayer. They
meant that they were not Roman or Gothic or Byzan-
tine. And in a year they had cluttered them up with
their cheap plaster saints ; they took out my plain win-
dows and put in stained glass dedicated to dead pork-
packers who had contributed to diocesan funds, and
wheif they had destroyed my space ancl my light, they
&ere able to pray again, and they evbn became proud
of what they had spoilt. I became what they called a
great Catholic architec t, but I built no more churches,
doctor.”

“I am n«t a religious man, I don’t know much about
these things, but I suppose they had a right to believe
their prayers were more important than a work of
art.”

“Men have prayed in prison, men hrfta prayed in
slums and concentration camps. It’s only the middle-
classes who demand to pray in suitable surroundings.
Sometimes I feel sickened by the word prayer. Rycker
used it a great deal. Do you pray, doctor ?”

“I thiAk the last time I prayed was before my final
medical exam. And you ?”

“I gave it up a long time ago. Even in {he days when
I believed, I seldom prayed. It would have got in the
way of work. Before I went to sleep, even if I was with a
woman, the last thing I had always to think about was
work. Problems which seemed insoluble v ould often
solve themselves in sleep. I bad my bedroom next to
my office, so that I could spend two minutes in front
of the drawing-board the last thing of all. The bed,
the bidet, the drawinjf-tfoard, and then sleep.”

“It sounds a little hard on the woman.”

5i

"Self-expression is a hard and selfish thftig. It eats
everything, even the self. At the end you find you
haven’t even got a self to express. I have' no interest
i$ anything any more, doctor. I don’t want to sleep
with a woman nor design a building.’’

“Have*you no children ?”

"I once had, but they disappeared into the world a
long time ago. We haven’t kgpt in touch. Self-expres-
sion eats the fat'her in you too.’’

“So you thou'ght you could just come and die
here?”

"Yes. That was in my mind. But chiefly I wanted to
be in an empty place, where no new building or
woman would remind me that there was a time when
I was alive, with a vocation and a capacity to love - if
it was love. The palsied suffer, their nerves feel, but I
am one of the mutilated, doctor.”

“Twenty years ago we might have been able to
offer you your death, but now we deal only in cures.
D.D.S. costs three shillings a year. It’s much cheaper
than a coffin.”

“Can you cure me ?”

“Perhaps your mutilations haven’t gone faV enough
yet. When a man comes here too late the disease has to
burn itself ouf.” The doctor laid a cloth tenderly over
his machine. “The other patien/s are waiting. Do you
want to come or would you like to sit here thinking of
your own case ? It’s dften the way with the mutilated -
they want to retire too, out of sight.”

The air in the hospital lay heavily and sweetly upon
them : it was never moved by a fan or a breeze. Querry
was conscious of the squalor of the bedding - clean-
linesst'Was not important to 4 tlye leper, only to the
healthy. The patients brought their own mattresses

58

which they had probably possessed for a lifetime -
rough sacking from which the straw had escaped. The
bandaged feet lay in the straw like ill-wrapped pack-
ages of meat. On the verandah the walking cases s;^t
out of the sun - if you could call a walking case a man
who, when he moved, had to support his huge swollen
testicles with both hands. A woman with palsied eye-
lids who could not closg her eyes or even blink sat
in a patch of shade out of the merciless light. A man
Without fingers nursed a baby on his Khee, and another
man lay flat on the verandah with one breast long and
drooping and tcated like a woman’s. There was little
the doctor could do for any of these; the man with
elephantiasis had too weak a heart for an operation,
and though he could have sewn up the woman’s eye-
lids, she had refused to have it done from fear, and as
for the baby it would be a leper too in time. Nor could
he help those in the first ward who were d’/ing of tuber-
culosis or the woman who dragged herself between the
beds, her legs withered with polio. It had always
seemeJ^o the doctor unfair that leprosy did not pre-
clude all other diseases (leprosy was enough for one
human being to bear) and yet it was from the other
diseases that most of his patients died. He passed on
and Querry tagged at his heels, saying frothing.

In the mud kitchen fit the back of one of the lepers’
houses an old man sat in the dark on an ancient deck-
chair. He made an effort to rise when the doctor
crossed the yard, but his legs wouldn’t support him
and he made a gesture of courteous apology. “High
blood pressure,” the doctor said softly. “No hope. He
has come to his kitchen to die.” His legs were as thin
as a child’s and he wj>rd a clout like a baby’s napkin
round the waist for decency. Querry had seen where

53

his clothes had been left neatly folded in the-new brick
cottage under the Pope’s portrait. A holy medal lay
in the hollow of his breast among the Scarce grey
h^iirs. He had a face of great kindness and dignity, a
face that must have always accepted life without com-
plaint, the ({ice of a saint. Now he enquired after the
doctor’s health as though it were the doctor who was
sicR, not he.

“Is there anything that I can fetch you ?” the doc-
tor asked, and nO, the old man replied, he had every-
thing he needed. He wanted to know whether the
doctor had heard recently from his family and he made
enquiries after the health of the doctor’s mother.

“She has been in Switzerland, in the mountains. A
holiday in the snow.”

“Snow?”

“I forgot. You have never seen snow. It is frozen
vapour, froA.n mist. The air is so cold that it never
melts and it lies on the ground white and soft like the
feathers o{a.pique-bauf, and the lakes are covered with

• itl •

ice.

“I know what ice is,” the old man said proudly. “I
have seen ice in a refrigerator. Is your mother old
like me?”

“Older.” •

“Then she ought not to trayel far away from her
home. One should die in one’s own village if ft is pos-
sible.” He looked sadly at his own thin legs. “They
will not carry me or I should walk to mine.”

“I would arrange for a lorry to take you,” the doc-
tor said, “but I donk think you would stand the
journey.”

“If would be too much tftn^ble for you,” the old
man said, “and in any case there is no time because I

54

am going to die tomorrow.”

“I will tell the Superior to come and see you as soon
as he can.” *

“I do not wish to be any trouble to him. He hs’p
many duties. I will not be dead till the evening.”

By the old deck-chair stood a bottle with a Johnny
Walker label. It contained a brown liquid and some
withered plants tied together with a loop of beads.
“What has hie got there,” Querry. aSked after they
lift him, “in the bottle?”

“Medicine. Magic. An appeal to his God Nzambi.”

“I thought he was a Catholic.”

“If I sign a form I call myself a Catholic too. So does
he. I believe in nothing most of the time. He half be-
lieves in Christ and half believes in Nzambi. There’s
not muon ditference between us as far as Catholicism
is concerned. I only wish I were as good a man.”

“Will he really die tomorrow ?”

“I think so. They have a wonderful knack oi
knowing.”

In th? dispensary a leper with bandaged feet stood
waiting with a small boy in her arms. Every rib in the
child’s body showed. It was like a cage over which a
dark cloth has been flung at night to keep a bird
asleep, and like a bird his breath movtd under the
cloth. It was not lepjosy that would kill him, the
doctor ?aid, but sicklaemia, an incurable disease of the
blood. There was no hope. The child would not live
long enough even to become a leper, but there was
no point in telling the mother that. He touched t^e
little hollow chest with his linger, and the child
winced away. The doctor began to abuse the woman
in her own language, »iftl she argued unconvincingly
back, clutching the *boy against her hip. The boy

55

stared passively over the doctor’s shoulder with sad
frog-like eyes as though nothing that anyone said
would ever concern him seriously again. When the
^oman had gone, Doctor Colin said, “She promises
it won’t happen any more. But how can I tell?”

“What happen?”

“Didn’t you see the little scar on his breast? They
have been cutting a pockef in his skin to put their
native medicines in. She says it was the grandmother
who did it. Poor bhild. They won’t let him die in peace
without pain. I told her that if it happened again, I
would cease treating her for leprosy, but I daresay
they won’t let me see the boy a second time. In that
state he’s as easy to hide as a needle.”

“Can’t you put him in the hospital ?”

“You’ve seen what sort of a hospital I’ve got.
Would you want a boy of yours to die there ? Next,”
he called ift.grily, “next,” and the next was a child
too, a boy of six years old. His father accompanied
him, and his fingerless fist rested on the boy’s shoulder
to give him comfort. The doctor turned t,he child
round and ran his hand over the young skin.

“Well x ” he said, “you should be noticing things by
this time. What do you think of this case ?”

“One of his toes has gone already.”

“That’s not important. He’s t had jiggers and they’ve
neglected them. It happens often in the bus'h. No -
here’s the first patch. The leprosy has just begun.”

“Is there no way to protect the children ?”
i “In Brazil they take them away at birth, and
thirty per cent of the babies die. I prefer a leper to a
dead child. We’ll cure him in a couple of years.” He
looked up quickly at Querr^ end away again. “One
day-in die new hospital - I’ll have a special children’s

56

ward and dispensary. 1*11 anticipate the patch. 1*11
live to see leprosy in retreat. Do you know there are
some areas, la few hundred miles from here, where one
in five of the people are lepers ? I dream of movable
prefabricated hospitals. War has changed. In 1914
generals organised battles from country-houses, but
in 1944 Rommel and Montgomery fought from
moving caravans. How can I convey what I want* to
Father Joseph"? I can’t draw. I can't eVen design one
toom to the best advantage. I'll on>y be able to tell
him what's wrong after the hospital is built. He's not
even a builder. He's a good bricklayer. He's putting
one brick on another for the love of God like they used
to build monasteries. So you see I need you,” Doctor
Colin said. The boy’s four toes wriggled impatiently on
the cement door, waiting for the meaningless conver-
sation between the white men to reach a conclusion.

2

Querry # wrote in his journal: “I haven't enough
feeling left for human beings to do anything for them
out of pity.” He carefully recalled the scar on the im-
mature breast and the four toes, but he was unmoved;
an accumulation of pinpricks cannot amount to the
sensation of pain. A storm was on the way, and the
flying Aits swarmed into the room, striking against
the light until he shut the window. Then they fell on
the cement floor and lost their wings and ran this
way and that as though they were confused at findiyg
themselves so suddenly creatures of earth not air.
With the window closed the wet heat increased and
he had to put blotting) ffeper under his wrist to fjatch
the sweat.

57

He wrote, in an attempt to make clear his motives
to Dr. Colin: “A vocation is an act of love: it is not a
professional career. When desire is dead one cannot
opntinue to make love. I’ve come to the end of desire
and to the end of a vocation. Don’t try to bind me in
a loveles; marriage and to make me imitate what I
used to perform with passion. And don’t talk to me
like a priest about my duty . A talent - we used to learn
that lesson as children in scripture-lessolis - should not
be buried when it still has purchasing power, but when
the currency has changed and the image has been
superseded and no value is left in the coin but the
weight of a wafer of silver, a man has every right to
hide it. Obsolete coins, like com, have Always been
found in graves.”

The notes were rough and disjointed : he had no
talent to organise his thought in words. He ended:
“What I hu/e built, I have always built for myself,
not for the glory of God or the pleasure of a purchaser.
Don’t talk to me of human beings. Human beings are
not ihy country. And haven’t I offered anyway to
wash their filthy bandages ?”

He tore the pages out and sent them, by Deo
Gratias to Dr. Colin. At the end a half-sentence had
been thrust out into the void - “I will do anything for
you in reason, but don’t ask me to try to revive ...”
like a plank from a ship’s deck off which d victim
has been thrust.

Dr. Colin came to his room later and tossed the
letter, scrumpled into a paper-ball, on to his table.
“Scruples,” the doctor said impatiently. “Just
scruples.” ‘

“^tried to explain ... ” « c

'“Who cares?” the doctor said, and that question

58

“Who cajes?” went echoing obsessively on in
Querry’s brain like a line of verse learnt in adoles-
cence.

He had a dream that night from which he woke in
terror. He was walking down a long railway-track, in
the dark, in a cold country. He was hurrying because
he had to reach a priest and explain to him that, in
spite of the clothes he was wearing, he was a priest also
andjie must*make his* confession and obtain wine
«jwith which to celebrate Mass. He was under orders of
some kind from a superior. He had to say his Mass now
that night. Tomorrow would be too late. He would
lose his chance forever. He came to a village and left
the railway-track (the small station was shuttered and
deserted: perhaps the whole branch line had been
closed Wg since by the authorities) and presently
found himself outside the priest’s door, heavy and
mediaeval, studded with great nails the of Roman
coins. He rang and was admitted. A lot of chattering
pious womr. surrounded the priest, but he was
friendly and accessible in spite of them. Querry said,
“I musf see you at once, alone. There is something I
have to 1^11 you,” and already he began to feel the
enormous relief and security of his confession. He was
nearly home again. The priest took him aside into a
little room where a decanter of wine stood on a table,
but before he had tim^to speak the holy women came
billowing in through the curtain after them, full of
little pious jests and whimsicalities. “But we must be
alone,” Querry cried, “I have to speak to you,” and
the priest pushed the women back through the cer-
tain, and they swayed for a moment to and fro like
clothes on hangers irLa§ cupboard. All the same the
two of them were sufficiently alone now for hinvto

59

speak, and with his eyes on the wine he was able at
last really to begin. “Father ...” but at that
moment, when he was about to lose the burden of his
fear and responsibility, a second priest entered the
room and taking the father on one side began to ex-
plain to him how he had run short of wine and had
come to borrow his, and still talking he picked up the
decanter from the table. Then Querry broke down.
It was as though he had had an appbintmen^with
hope at this turn of the road and had arrived just too
late. He let out a cry like that of an animal in pain
and woke. It was raining hard on all the tin roofs, and
when the lightning flashed he could see the small
white cell that his mosquito-net made, the size of a
coffin, and in one of the leper-houses nearly a quarrel
had begun between a man and a woman. He thought,
‘I was too late,’ and an obsessional phrase bobbed up
again, like c^rork attached to some invisible fishing-
net below the water, ‘Who cares ?’ ‘Who cares ?’

When the morning came at last he went to the car-
penter in the leproserie and showed him how to make
the kind of desk and drawing-board that he required,
and only when that was done did he seek opt Doctor
Colin to fell him of his decision.

“I am glad,” Dr. Colin said, “for you.”

“Why for me?”

“I know nothing about yob,” Doctor CoKn said,
“but we are all made much the same way. You have
been trying an impossible experiment. A man can’t
live with nothing but himself.”
c “Oh yes, he can.”

“Sooner or later he would kill himself.”

“If he had enough interest,” Querry replied.

60

Chapter Four

i

After two mfinths a measure of .natural confidence
4iad grown between Querry and Deo Gratias. At first
it was based only on the man’s disabilities. Querry
was not angry with him when he spilt water; he kept
his temper when one of his drawings was smeared by
ink from g broken bottle. It takes a long time to
learn even the simplest tasks without fingers and toes,
and in any case a man who cares for nothing finds it
difficult - or absurd - to be angry. There was one
occasion when the crucifix which the fitters had left
hanging on Querry’s wall was broken by some mala-
droitness on *he part of the mutilated man and he
expeefed Querry to react as he might have ftacted
himself if a fetish of his own had been carelessly or
heartles«Jy destroyed. It was easy for him to mistake
indifference for sympathy.

One night when the moon was full Querry became
aware of the man’s absence as one might become
awarelaf some hitherto unnoticed object missing from
a mantelpiece in a temporary home. His ewer had not
been filled and the mosquito-net had not been drawn
down, and later, as he was on his way to the doctor’s
hpuse, where he had to discuss a possible cut in the
cost of building, he met Deo Gratias stumbling with
his staff down the central road of the leprosqfie as
quickly as he was able on toeless feet. The man’s face

61

was wet with sweat and when Querry spoke, to him he
swerved away into someone’s backyard. When
Querry returned half-an-hour later he stood there
still, like a tree-stump that the owner had not bothered
to move. The sweat looked like traces of the night’s
rain on the bark and he appeared to be listening to
something a long way off. Querry listened too, but he
couid hear nothing except the rattle of the crickets and
the swelling diapason of the frogs. In theVmorningJDeo
Gratias had not returned, and Querry felt an unim-
portant disappointment that the servant had not
spoken a word to him before he left. He told the
doctor that the boy had gone. “If he doesn’t come
back tomorrow will you find me another?”

“I don’t understand,” Doctor Colin said. “I only
gave him the job so that he might stay in the lepro-
serie. He had no wish to go.” Later that day a leper
picked up tfct man’s staff from a path that led into
the thickest bush, and brought it to Querry’s room
where he was at work, taking advantage of the last
fight. -

“But how do you know that the staff is his f All the
mutilated lepers have them,” Querry askecj. and the
man simply repeated that it belonged to Deo Gratias -
no argument,, no reason, just one more of the things
they knew that he knew nothing about.

“You think some accident hks happened to'him?”

Something, the man said in his poor French, had
happened, and Querry got the impression that an
accident was what the man feared least of all.

'“Why don’t you go and look for him then?”
Querry asked.

Tfyere was not enough ligty left, the man said,
under the trees. They would have to wait till morning.

62

“But h$’s been gone already nearly twenty-four
hours. If there has been an accident we have waited
long enough. You can take my torch.”

The morning would be better, the man repeated,
and Querry saw that he was scared.

“If I go with you, will you come ?”

The man shook his head, so Querry went alone.

He could not blame these people for their feans: a
man had to Relieve in ‘nothing if ht was not to be
^afraid of the big bush at night. These was little in the
forest to appeal to the romantic. It was completely
empty. It had never been humanised, like the woods
of Europe, with witches and charcoal-burners and
cottages of marzipan ; no one had ever walked under
these trees lamenting lost love, nor had anyone
listened to die silence and communed like a lake-poet
with his heart. lor there was no silence; if a man here
wished to be heard at night he had to r^jgt his voice to
counter the continuous chatter of the insects as in
some monstrous lactory where thousands of sewing-
machines were being driven against time by nfyriads
of neeefy seamstresses. Only for an hour or so, in the
midday Jjeat, silence fell, the siesta of the insect.

But if, like these Africans, one believed in some
kind of divine being, wasn’t it just as possible for a
god to exist in this empty region as in the empty
spaces*)f the sky whefe men had once located him?
These woody spaces would remain unexplored, it
seemed likely now, for longer than the planets. The
craters of the moon were already better known than
the forest at the door that one could enter any day t>n
foot. The sharp sour smell of chlorophyl from rotting
vegetation and swamj^«*vater fell like a dentist’s mask
over Querry’s face.

63

It was a stupid errand. He was no hunter. He had
been bred in a city. He couldn’t possibly hope to
discover a human track even in daylight, and he had
accepted too easily the evidence of the staff. Shining
his torch on this side and that he elicited only stray
gleams and flashes among the foliage which might
have been the reflection of eyes, but were more prob-
ably little pools of rainwater caught in the curls of the
leaves. He must have been walking n&w for hajjf an
hour, and he had probably covered a mile along the
narrow path. Once his finger slipped on the trigger of
the torch and in the moment of darkness he walked
off the twisting path slap into the forest-wall. He
thought: I have no reason to believe that my battery
will see me home. He continued to digest t*he thought
as he walked further in. He had said to Doctor Colin
to explain the reason for his stay, “the boat goes no
further”, but*’l is always possible to go a little deeper
on one’s own feet. riv. '■ailed “Deo Gratias! Deo
Gratias!” above the noise of the insects, but the
absurd name which sounded like an invocation in a
church received no response.

His own presence here was hardly more explicable
than that of Deo Gratias. The thought of his servant
lying injured in the forest waiting for the call or foot-
step of any human being would perhaps at an earlier
time have vexed him all night Cmtil he was forded into
making a token-gesture. But now that he cared for
nothing, perhaps he was being driven only by a ves-
tige of intellectual curiosity. What had brought Deo
Gfatias here out of the safety and familiarity of the
leproserie? The path, of course, might be leading
somewhere - to a village perhaps where Deo Gratias
had relations - but he had already learned enough of

64

Africa to#know that it was more likely to peter out -
to be the relic of a track made by men who had come
searching for caterpillars to fry; it might well mark
the furthest limit of human penetration. What was
the meaning of the sweat he had seen pouring down
the man’s face? It might have been caused by fear or
anxiety or even, in the heavy river-heat, by the pres-
sure of thought. Interest began to move painfully in
him like a nerve that has been frozen. He had lived
with inertia so long that he examined his “interest”
with clinical detachment.

He must have been walking now, he told himself,
over an hour. How had Deo Gratias come so far
without hjs staff on mutilated feet ? He felt more than
ever doubtful whether the battery would last him
home. Nonetheless, he went on. He realised how
fooiish he had been not to tell the doctor or one of the
fathers where he was going incase oAaccidcnt, but
wasn’t an accident perhffpfexactly what he was
seeking? In -any case he went on, while the mos-
quitoes droned to the attack. There was no j?oint in
waving them away. He trained himself to submit.

Fifty #yards further he was startled by a harsh
animal sound - the kind of grunt he could imagine a
wild boar giving. He stopped and moved his waning
light in a circle round him. He saw that many years
ago tlfis path must have been intended to lead some-
where, for in front of him were the remains of a bridge
made from the trunks of trees that h'ul long ago
rotted. Two more steps and he would have fallen
c|pwn the gap, not a great fall, a matter of feet only,
into a shallow overgrown marsh, but for a man
mutilated in hands ^yWeet far enough : the light^hone
on the body of Deo Gratias, half in the water, half out.

65

He could see the tracks made in the wet and slippery
ground by hands like boxing gloves which had tried to
catch hold. Then the body grunted again, and Querry
climbed down beside it.

Querry couldn’t tell whether Deo Gratias was con-
scious or not. His body was too heavy to lift, and he
made no effort to co-operate. He was warm and wet
like*h hummock of soil; he felt like part of the bridge
that had fallen iA many years ago. After ten minutes of
struggle Querry managed to drag his limbs out of the
water - it was all he could do. The obvious thing now,
if his torch would last long enough, was to fetch help.
Even if the Africans refused to return with him two of
the fathers would certainly aid him. Hq made to
climb up on to the bridge and Deo Gratias howled, as
a dog or a baby might howl. He raised a stump and
howled, and Querry realised that he was crippled with
fear. The fing'.Ie"* hand fell on Querry’s arm like a
hammer and held him tnc.e.

There was nothing to be done but wait for the
morning. The man might die of fear, but neither of
them would die from damp or mosquito-bites. He
settled himself down as comfortably as he cou/d by the
boy and by the last light of the torch examined the
rocky feet. As far as he could tell an ankle was broken -
that seemed to be all. Soon the light was so dim that
Querry could see the shape of the filament *10 the
dark, like a phosphorescent worm; then it went out
altogether. He took Deo Gratias’s hand to reassure
him, or rather laid his own hand down beside it ; you
cannot “take” a fingerless hand. Deo Gratias grunted
twice, and then uttered a word. It sounded like
“Penfteld”. In the darkness th^ knuckles felt like a
rock that has been eroded for years by the weather.

66

2

“We both had a lot of time to think,” Querry said to
Doctor Colin. “It wasn’t light enough to leave him
till about six. I suppose it was about six - I had for-
gotten to wind my watch.”

“It must have been a long bad night.”

“One has had worse alone.” H<? seemed to be
Searching his memory for an example. “Nights when
things end. Those are the interminable nights. In a
way you know this seemed a night when things begin.
I’ve never much minded physical discomfort. And
after about an hour when I tried to move my hand, he
wouldn't let it go. His fist lay on it like a paper-weight.
I had an odd feeling that he needed me.”

“Why odd ?” Doctor Colin asked.

“Odd to me. I’ve needed peopl^g&earfmough in my
life. You might accuse me o#ttIvIng used people more
than I have . ,er loved them. But to be needed is a
different sensation, a tranquillizer, not an excitement.
Do you know what the word ‘Pendele’ means?
Because ijfter I moved my hand he began to talk. I had
never properly listened to an African talking before.
You know how one listens with half an ear, as one does
to children. It wasn’t easy to follow the mixture of
Frenclt and whatever language it is that Deo Gratias
speaks. And this word ‘Penddl6’ continually cropped
up. What does it mean, doctor ?”

“I’ve an idea that it means something the same as
Bunkasi - and that means pride, arrogance, perhaps a
kind of dignity and independence if you look at the
good side of the worc^’4

“It’s not what he meant. I am certain he meant a

67

place - somewhere in the forest, near water, where
something of great importance to him was happening.
He had felt strangled his last day in the leproserie; of
course he didn’t use the word ‘strangled’, he told me
there wasn’t enough air, he wanted to dance and
shout aqd run and sing. But, poor fellow, he couldn’t
run or dance and the fathers would have taken a poor
view of the kind of songs he wanted to sing. So he set
out to find this 'place beside the water. 1 He had been
taken there once <by his mother when he was a child,
and he could remember how there had been singing
and dancing and games and prayers.”

“But Deo Gratias comes from hundreds of miles
away.”

“Perhaps there is more than one Pendele in the
world.”

“A lot of people left the leproserie three nights ago.
They’ve mos|/>£ them come back. I expect they had
some kind of witchcran &iing on. He started too late
and he couldn’t catch up with them.”

“I Asked him what prayers. He said they prayed
to Yezu Klisto and someone called Simon. Is that the
same as Simon Peter?”

“No, not quite the same. The fathers could tell you
about Simon. He died in gaol nearly twenty years ago.
They think he’ll rise again. It’s a strange Christianity
we have here, but I wonder Vhether the Apostles
would find it as difficult to recognise as the collected
works of Thomas Aquinas. If Peter could have under-
stood those, it would have been a greater miracle than
Pentecost, don’t you think ? Even the Nicaean Creed -
it has the flavour of higher mathematics to me.”

“"^hat word Pendele runs i* piy head.”

“We always connect hope with youth,” Doctor

68

Colin sai& “but sometimes it can be one of the
diseases of age. The cancerous growth you find un-
expectedly in the dying after a deep operation. These
people here are all dying - oh, I don’t mean ol leprosy,
I mean of us. And their last disease is hope.”

“You’ll know where to look for me,” Querry said,
“if I should be missing.” An unexpected sound made
the doctor look up ; Querry’s face was twisted intonhe
rictus of a ladgh. The doctor realised with astonish-
. ment that Querry had perpetrated a joke.

69

Part III

Chapter One

i

M. and Mme. Rycker drove into tftwn for cocktails
* with the Governor. In a village by the road stood a
great wooden cage on stilts where once a year at a
festival a man danced above the flames lit below; in
the bush thirty kilometres before they had passed
something sitting in a chair constructed out of a palm-
nut and woven fibres into the rough and monstrous
appe^ance of a human being. Inexplicable objects
were the fingerprints of Africa. Naked women
smeared white with grave-clay fled banks as the

car passed, hiding their fav'^C

Ryckcr sutd, “When Mme. Guclle asks you what
you vttll drink, say a glass of Perrier.”

“Not an orange pressie ?”

“Not*inless you can see a jug of it on the sideboard.
We mustn’t inconvenience her.”

Marie Rycker took the advice seriously in and then
turned her eyes from her husband and stared away at
the d&ll forest wall, llie only path that led inside was
closed with fibre-mats for a ceremony no white man
must see.

“You heard what I said, darling.?”

“Yes. I will remember.”

“And the canapis. Don’t eat too many of them like
you did last time. W«4iaven’t come to the Residence
to take a meal. It creates a bad impression.”

73

“I won’t touch a thing.”

“That would be just as bad. It would look as though
you had noticed they were stale. They usually are.”

The little medal of Saint Christopher jingle-jangled
like a fetish below the windscreen.

“I am frightened,” the girl said. “It is all so com-
plicated amd Mme. Guelle does not like me.”

“It isn’t that she doesn’t like you,” Rycker ex-
plained kindly. ‘*It is only that last time' you remem-
ber, you began to 'leave before the wife of the Com-
missioner. Of course, we are not bound by these
absurd colonial rules, but we don’t want to seem
pushing and it is generally understood that as leading
commerfants we come after the Public Works. Watch
for Mme. Cas&in to leave.”

“I never remember any of their names.”

“The very fat one. You can’t possibly miss her. By
the way if Oitwgy. .s ho uld be there don’t be shy of
inviting him for the mgfttrin a place like this one longs
for intelligent conversation. For the sake of Querry I
would tven put up with that atheist Doctor Colin.
We could make up another bed on the verandah.”

But neither Querry nor Colin was there. «

“A Perrier if you are sure it’s no trouble,” Marie
Rycker said. Everybody had been driven in from the
garden, for it was the hour when the D.D.T. truck
cannoned a stinging hygienic fog over the towrf.

Mme. Guelle graciously brought the Perrier with
her own hands. “You are the only people,” she said,
“who seem to have met M. Querry. The mayor would
have liked him to sign the Golden Book, but he seerr^s
to spend all his time in that sad place out there.
Now ,you perhaps could pry« him out for all our
sakes.”

74

“We dpn’t really know him,” Marie Rycker said.
“He spent the night with us when the river was in
flood, that’s all. He wouldn’t have stayed otherwise.

I don’t think he wants to see people. My husband
promised not to tell ...”

“Your husband was quite right to tell us. We
should have looked such fools, having the Querry in
our own territory without being aware of it. Ilov^did
he strike you,*dear ?”

“I hardly spoke to him.”

“His reputation in certain ways is very bad they
tell me. Have you read the article in Time ? Oh yes, of
course, your husband showed it to us. Not of course
that they write of that. It’s only what they say in
Europe. (5ne has to remember though that some of
the gr<^at saints of the Church passed though a cer-
tain period of - how shall I put it ?*'

“Do I hear you talking of saint^J^me. Guelle?”
Rycker asked. “What excciifrrit whisky you always
have.”

“Not exactly saints. We were discussing M.
Querr^.”

“In njy opinion,” Rycker said, raising his voice a
little like a monitor in a noisy classroom, “he may
well be the greatest thing to happen in Africa since '
Schweitzer, and Schweitzer after all is a Protestant.

I fouAd him a most interesting companion when he
stayed with us. And have you heard the latest story ?”
Rycker asked the room at large, shaking the ice in his
glass like a hand-bell. “He went out into the bush two
weeks ago, they say, to find a leper who had run avfhy.
lie spent the whole night with him in the forest,
arguing and praying, sand he persuaded the njan to
return and complete his treatment. It rained in the

75

night and the man was sick with fever, so lje covered
him with his body.”

“What an unconventional thing to do,” Mme.
Guelle said. “He’s not, is he ... ?”

The Governor was a very small man with a short-
sight which gave him an appearance of moral inten-
sity; physically he had the air of looking to his wife for
protection, but like a small nation, proud of its cul-
ture, he was an* unwilling satellite. H<? said, “There
are more saints in the world than the Church recog-
nises.” This remark stamped with official approval
what might otherwise have been regarded as an
eccentric or even an ambiguous action.

“Who is this man Querry ?” the Director of Public
Works asked the Manager of Otraco.

“They say he’s a world-famous architect. You
should know. He comes into your province.”

“He’s not h ere offi cially, is he ?”

“He’s helping witlTthe new hospital at the lepro-
serie.”

“But I passed those plans months ago. They don’t
need an architect. It’s a simple building job.”

“The hospital,” Rycker said, interrupting them and
drawing them within his circle, “you can take it from
me, is only a first step. He is designing a modern
African church. He hinted at that to me himself. He’s
a man of great vision. What hi builds lasts. A 'prayer
in stone. There’s Monseigneur coming in. Now we
shall learn what the Church thinks of Querry.”

The Bishop was a tall rakish figure with a neatly
trilnmed beard and the roving eye of an old-fashioned
cavalier of the boulevards. He generously avoided put-
ting out his hand to the mrq, so that they might
escape a genuflection. Women however liked to kiss his

76

ring (it was a form of innocent flirtation), and he
readily allowed it.

“So we have a saint among us, Monseigneur,”
Mme. Guelle said.

“You honour me too much. And how is the Gover-
nor? I don’t see him here.”

“He’s gone to unlock some more whisky. To tell
the truth, Monseigneur, I was not referring to you.
I’d be sorry tS see you become a §ai*t - for the time
^being, that is.”

“An Augustinian thought,” the Bishop said ob-
scurely.

“We were talking about Querry, the Querry,”
Rycker explained. “A man in that position burying
himself in a leproserie, spending a night praying with
a lepei in tne bush - you must admit, Monseigneur,
that self-sacrifices like that are rare. What do you
think?”

“I am wondering, does he play bridge ?” Just as the
Governor’s comment had given administrative ap-
provaf to Querry’s conduct, so the Bishop’s question
was talten to mean that the Church in her wise and
traditional fashion reserved her opinion.

The Bishop accepted a glass of orange juice. Marie
Rycker looked at it sadly. She had parked her Perrier
and didn’t know what to do with her hands. The Bishop
said t£ her kindly, “\^)u should learn bridge, Mme.
Rycker. We have too few players round here now.”

“I am frightened of cards, Monseigneur.”

“I will bless the pack and teach you myself.”
Marie Rycker was uncertain whether the Bislfop
was joking; she tried out an unnoticeable kind of
smile.

Rycker said, “I can’t imagine how a man of

77

Querry’s calibre can work with that atheist Colin.
That’s a man, you can take it from me, who doesn’t
know the meaning of the word charity. Do you
remember last year when I tried to organise a Lepers’
Day? He would have nothing to do with it. He said
he couldn’i afford to accept charity. Four hundred
dresses and suits had been accumulated and he
refttsed to distribute them, just because there weren’t
enough to go round. He said he would have had to
buy the rest out of his own pocket to avoid jealousy -
why should a leper be jealous? You should talk to
him one day. Monseigneur, on the nature of charity.”

But Monseigneur had moved on, his hand under
Marie Rycker’s elbow.

“Your husband seems very taken up with this
man Querry,” he said.

“He thinks he may be somebody he can talk to.”

“Are you sorfilent?” the Bishop asked, teasing her
gently as though he had indeed picked her up outside
a cafe on the boulevards.

“I can’t talk about his subjects.”

“What subjects?”

“Free Will and Grace and - Love.”

“Come now - love . . . you know about that,
don’t you ?”

“Not that kind of love,” Marie Rycker said.

78

2

By the time the Ryckers came to go - they had to wait
a long time for Mme. Cassin - Rycker had drunk to
the margin of what was dangerous; he had passed
from excessive amiability to dissatisfaction, the kind
of cosmic dissatisfaction which, after probing faultsin
others’ characters, went on to the examination of his
own. Marie Rycker knew that if he could be induced
at this stage to take a sleeping-pill all might yet be
well ; he would probably reach unconsciousness
before he reached religion which, like the open
doorway in a red-lamp district, led inevitably to
sex.

“Theie a*e times,” Rycker said, “when I wish we
had a more spiriiual bishop.”

“He was kind to me,” Marie Rycker said.

“I suppose he talked to you of cards.”

“He ofleied to teach me bridge.”

“I suppose he knew that I had forbidden fbu to
play.” *

“He coyldn’t. I’ve told no one.”

“I will not have my wife turned into a typical
colon”

“I think I am one already/’ She added in a low
voice, don’t want to t5e different.”

He said sharply, “Spending all their time in small
talk ...”

“I wish I could. How I wish I could. If anyone
could only teach me that ...” •

It was always the same. She drank nothing but
Perrier, and yet the alcpjaol on his breath would make
her talk as though the whisky had entered her own

79

blood, and what she said then was always too close to
the truth. Truth, which someone had once written
made us free, irritated Rycker as much as one of his
own hang-nails. He said, “What nonsense. Don’t talk
like that for effect. There are times when you remind
me of Mm£. Guelle.” The night sang discordantly at
them from either side of the road, and the noises
from the forest were louder than the engine. She had a
longing for alkthe shops which clim&ed uphill along
the rue de Namur: she tried to look through the
lighted dashboard into a window full of shoes. She
stretched out her foot beside the brake and said in a
whisper, “I take size six.”

“What did you say ?”

“Nothing.”

In the light of the headlamp she saw the cage strut-
ting by the road like a Martian.

“You are getting into a bad habit of talking to
yourself.”

She said nothing. She couldn’t tell him, “There is
no orie else to speak to,” about the patisserie at the
corner, the day when Sister Theresc broke Her ankle,
the plage in August with her parents.

“A lot of it is my own fault,” Rycker said, reaching
his second stage. “I realise that. I have failed to teach
you the real values as I see them. What can you
expect from the manager of £ palm-oil factory ? I was
not meant for this life. I should have thought even you
could have seen that.” His vain yellow face hung like
a mask between her and Africa. He said, “When I was
ybung I wanted to be a priest.” He must have told her
this, sifter drinks, at least once a month since they
married, and every time ha spoke she remembered
their first night in the hotel at Antwerp, when he had

80

lifted his body off her like a half-filled sack and dum-
ped it at her side, and she, feeling some tenderness
because she thought that in some way she had failed
him, touched his shoulder (which was hard and round
like a swede in the sack), and he asked her roughly,
“Aren’t you satisfied? A man can’t go on and on.”
Then he had turned on his side away from her: the
holy medal that he always wore had got twisted by
their embrace and now lay in the small of his back,
facing her like a reproach. She wanted to defend her-
self: ‘It was you who married me. I know about
chastity too - the nuns taught me.’ But the chastity
she had been taught was something which she con-
nected with clean white garments and light and
gentleness, while his was like old sackcloth in a desert.

“What did you say ?”

“Nothing.”

“You are not even interested when I tell you my
deepest feelings.”

She said miserably, “Perhaps it was a mistake.”

“Mistake ?”

“Marfying me. I was too young.”

“You mean I am too old to give you satisfac-
tion.”

“No-no. I didn’t mean ...”

“You know only one kind of love, don’t you? Do
you suppose that’s the kind of love the saints feel ?”

“I don’t know any saints,” she said desperately.

“You don’t believe I am capable in my small way
of going through the Dark Night of the Soul? I am
only your husband who shares your bed ...” *

She whispered, “I don’t understand. Please, I don’t
understand.”

“What don’t you understand ?”

81

“I thought that love was supposed to make you
happy.”

“Is that what they taught you in the convent?”

“Yes.”

He made a grimace at her, breathing heavily, and
the coupe vyas filled momentarily with the scent of Vat
6g. They passed beside the grim constructed figure in
thft chair; they were nearly home.

“What are you thinking ?” he asked.

She had been back in the shop in the rue de Namur
watching an elderly man who was gently, so gently,
easing her foot into a stiletto-heeled shoe. So she said,
“Nothing.”

Rycker said in a voice suddenly kind, “That is the
opportunity for prayer.”

“Prayer?” She knew, but without relief, that the
quarrel was over, for from experience she knew too
that, after the rain had swept by, the lightning
always came nearer.

“When I have nothing else to think of, I mean that
I have’io think of, I always say a Pater Noster,*an Ave
Maria or even an Act of Contrition.”

“Contrition ?” ,

“That I Have been unjustly angry with a dear child
whom I love.” His hand fell on her thigh and his
fingers kneaded gently the silk of her skirt, as though
they were seeking some musSie to fasten on. Outside
the rusting abandoned cylinders showed they were
approaching the house; they would see the lights of
the bedrooms when they turned.

‘She wanted to go straight to her room, the small hot
uninviting room where he sometimes allowed her to
be alone during her monthly or, unsafe periods, but he
stopped her with a touch; she hadn’t really expected

82

to get away with it. He said, “You aren’t angry with
me, Mawie ?” He always lisped her name childishly
at the moments when he felt least childish.

“No. It’s only - it wouldn’t be safe.” Her hope of
escape was that he feared a child.

“Oh come. I looked up the calendar before I came
out.”

“I’ve been sofrregular the last two months.” On£e
she had bought a douche, but he had found it and
thrdton it away and afterwards he had lectured her on
•the enormity and unnaturalness of her act, speaking
so long and emotionally on the subject of Christian
marriage that the lecture had ended on the bed.

He put his hand below her waist and propelled her
gently in the direction he required. “Tonight,” he
said, “wc’ii taac a risk.”

“But it’s the worst time. I promise ...”

“The Church doesn’t intend us to avoid all risk. The
safe period mustn’t be abused, Mawie.”

She implored him, “Let me go to my room for a
moment. I’ve left my things there,” for she hatdd un-
dressing *n front of his scrutinising gaze. “I won’t be
long. I promise I won’t be long.”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Rycker promised.

She undressed as slowly as she dared and took a
pyjamajacket from under her pillow. There was no
room here for anything but a small iron bed, a chair, a
wardrobe, a chest-of-drawers. On the chest was a
photograph of her parents - two happy elderly
people who had married late and had one child.
There was a picture postcard of Bruges sent by
cousin, and an old copy of Time. Underneath the
chest she had hidden aiwy and now she unlocked the
bottom drawer. Inside the drawer was her secret

83

museum: a too-clean Missal which she had been
given at the time of her first communion, a sea-shell,
the programme of a concert in Brussels, M. Andre
Lejeune’s Catholic History of Europe in one volume
for the use of schools, and an exercise book containing
an essay wjiich she had written during her last term
(she had received the maximum marks) on the Wars
of Religion. Now she added to her collection the old
copy of Time? Querry’s face covered M. Lejeune’s
History: it lay, a discord, among the relics of child-
hood. She remembered Mme. Guelle’s words exactly:
“His reputation in certain ways is very bad.” She
locked the drawer and hid the key - it was unsafe to
delay any further. Then she walked along the veran-
dah to their room, where Rycker was stretched naked
inside the mosquito tent of the double- bed under the
wooden body on the cross. He looked like a drowned
man fished up in a net - hair lay like seaweed on his
belly and legs; but at her entrance he came im-
mediately to life, lifting the side of the tent. “Come,
MaWie,” he said. A Christian marriage, hd\v often
she had been told it by her religious instructors,
symbolised the marriage of Christ and his •Church.

84

Chapter Two

i

The Superior with old-fashioned politeness ground out
his Cheroot, but Mme. Rycker was no sooner seated
• than absentmindedly he lit another. His desk was lit-
tered with hardware catalogues and scraps of paper on
which he had made elaborate calculations that always
came out differently, for he was a bad mathematician
- multiplication with him was an elaborate form of
addition and a series of subtractions would take the
place of long division. One page of a catalogue was
open at the picture of a bidet which the Superior had
mistaken for a new kind of footbath. When Mme.
Rycker entered he was trying to calculate whether he
could afford to buy three dozen of these for the lepro-
serie : the\ were just the thing for washing leprous feet.

“Why, Mme. Rycker, you are an unexpected visi-
tor. Is your husband ...”

“No.”

“It’s a long way to come alone.”

“I had company as far as the Perrins’. I spent the
night there. My husband asked me to bring you two
drums of oil.”

“How very kind of him.”

“I am afraid we do too little for the leproserie.” *

ft occurred to the Superior that he might ask the
Ryckers to supply a few* of the novel foot-baths, but
he was uncertain how many they could afford. To a

85

man without possessions any man with money
appears rich - should he ask for one foot-bath or the
whole three dozen ? He began to turn the photographs
towards Marie Rycker, cautiously, so that it might
look as though he were only fiddling with his papers.
It would be so much easier for him to speak if she were
to exclaim, “What an interesting new foot-bath,” so
that he could follow up by saying

Instead of that she confused him ty changing the
subject. “How are the plans for the new church,
father?”

“New church ?”

“My husband told me you were building a wonder- <
ful new church as big as a cathedral, in an African
style.”

“What an extraordinary idea. If I had the money
for that” - not with all his scraps of paper could he
calculate the cost of a “church like a cathedral” -
“why, we could build a hundred houses, each with a
foot-bath.” He turned the catalogue a little more to-
wards her. “Doctor Colin would never forghfe me for
wasting money on a church.” '

“I wonder why my husband ... ?”

Was it possibly a hint, the Superior wondered, that
the Ryckers were prepared to finance ... He could
hardly believe that the manager of a palm-oil factory
had made himself sufficiently rich, but Mme. Rycker
of course might have been left a fortune. Her inherit-
ance would certainly be the talk of Luc, but he only
made the journey to the town once a year. He said,
"The old church, you know, will serve us a long time
yet. Only half our people are Catholics. Anyway it’s
no use having a great churchuf the people still live in
mud huts. Now our friend Qucrry sees a way of cutting

86

the cost of a cottage by a quarter. We were such
amateurs here until he came.”

“My husband has told everyone that Querry is
building a church.”

“Oh no, we have better uses for him than that. The
new hospital too is a long way from being finished.
Any money we can beg or steal must go to equipping
it. I’ve just been4ooking at these catalogues ...” J

“Where is M. Querry now ?”

“6 h, I expect he’s working in his room, unless he’s
Vith the doctor.”

“Everybody was talking about him at the Gover-
nor’s two weeks ago.”

“Poor M.„Querry.”

A small black child hardly more than two feet high
walked into the room without knocking, coming in
like a scrap of shadow from the noonday glare outside.
He was quite naked and his little tassel hung like a
bean-pod below the pot-belly. He opened a drawer in
the Superior’s desk and pulled out a sweet. Then he
walked out again.

“They were being quite complimentary,” Mme.
Rycker saick “Is it true - about his boy getting lost . . . ?”

“Something of the sort happened. I don’t know
what they are saying.”

“Tha^he stayed all nigjit and prayed ...”

“M. Querry is hardly a praying man.”

“My husband thinks a lot of him. There are so few
people my husband can talk to. He asked me to come
here and invite ...”

“We are very grateful for the two drums of oil. What
you have saved us with those, we can spend ...” He
turned the photograph«r>f the bidet a little further
towards Mme. Rycker.

87

“Do you think I could speak to him ?”

“The trouble is, Mme. Rycker, this is his hour for
work.”

She said imploringly, “I only want to be able to tell
my husband that I’ve asked him,” but her small tone-
less voice * contained no obvious appeal and the
Superior was looking elsewhere, at a feature of the
foot-bath which he did not fully understand. “What
do you think of that ?” he asked.

“What?”

“This footbath. I want to get three dozen for the
hospital.”

He looked up because of her silence and was sur-
prised to see her blushing. It occurred tojiim that she
was a very pretty child. He said, “Do you think . . . ?”

She was confused, remembering the ambiguous
jokes of her more dashing companions at the convent.
“It’s not really a footbath, father.”

“What else could it be for then ?”

She said with the beginnings of humour, “You’d
better ask the doctor - or M. Querry.” She moved a
little in her chair, and the Superior took it for a sign of
departure..

“It’s a long ride back to the Perrins’, my dear. Can
I offer you a cup of coffee, or a glass of beer ?”

“No. No, thank you.”

“Or a little whisky?” In all the long years of his
abstinence the Superior had never learnt that whisky
was too strong for the midday sun.

“No, thank you. Please, father, I know you are
fiusy. I don’t want to be a nuisance, but if I could just
see M. Querry and ask him ...”

“I will give him your mes&ge, my dear. I promise I
won’t forget. See, I am writing it down.” He hesitated

88

which sum to disfigure with the memo - “Querry-
Rycker.” It was impossible for him to tell her that he
had given his promise to Querry to leave him undis-
turbed, “particularly by that pious imbecile, Rycker.”

“It won’t do, father. It won’t do. I promised I’d see
him myself. He won’t believe I’ve tried.” She broke off
and the Superior thought, 'I really believe she was
going to ask mg for a note, the kind of note children
take to school, saying that they have been genuinely
ill?

“I’m not even sure where he is,” the Superior said,
emphasising the word ‘sure* to avoid a lie.

“Ifl could just look for him.”

“Wc can^t have you wandering around in this sun.
What would vour husband say?”

“That’s what I am afraid of. He’ll never believe
that I did my best.” She was obviously close to tears
and this made her look younger, so that it was easy to
discount the tea’* a» the facile meaningless grief of
childhood.

“I tell you what,” the Superior said, “I will get him
to telephone - when the line is in order.”

“I kno\j that he doesn’t like my husband,” she said
with sad frankness.

“My dear child, it’s all in your imagination.” He
was at^his wit’s end. He said, “Querry’s a strange
fellow. None of us really know him. Perhaps he likes
none of us.”

“He stays with you. He doesn’t avoid you.”

The Superior felt a stab of anger against Querry.
Tfcese people had sent him two drums of oil. Surdly
they deserved in return a little civility. He said, “Stay
here. I’ll sec ifQuerry’srin his room. We can’t have you
looking all over the leproserie ...”

89

He left his study and turning the corner of the veran-
dah made for Querry’s room. He passed the rooms of
Father Thomas and Father Paul which were distin-
guished from each other by nothing more personal
than an individual choice of crucifix and a differing
degree of untidiness : then the chapel : then Querry’s
room. It was the only one in the place completely
bhre of symbols, bare indeed of almost everything. No
photographs df a community or a parent. The room
struck the Superior even in the heat of the day as cold
and hard, like a grave without a cross. Querry was'
sitting at his table, a letter before him, when the
Superior entered. He didn’t look up.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the Superior said.

“Sit down, father. Just a moment while I finish
this.” He turned the' page and said, “How do you end
your letters, father?”

“It depends. Your brother in Christ perhaps?”

“ Toute d toi. I remember I used to put that phrase
too. How false it sounds now.”

“You have a visitor. I’ve kept my word and
defended you to the last ditch. I can do no more. I
wouldn’t h/ive disturbed you otherwise.” •

“I’m glad you came. I don’t relish being alone with
this. You see - the mail has caught up with me. How
did anyone know I was her^? Does that damped local
Journal in Luc circulate even in Europe ?”

“Mme. Rycker is here, asking for you.”

“Oh well, at least it’s not her husband.”

He picked up the envelope. “Do you see, she’s even
gbt the post box number right. What patience. §he
must have written to the Order.”

“Who is she?”

“She was once my mistress. I left her three months

90

ago, poor woman - and that’s hypocrisy. I feel no
pity. I’m sorry, father. I didn’t mean to embarrass
you.”

“You haven’t. It’s Mme. Rycker who has done
that. She brought us two drums of oil and she wants
to speak to you.”

“Am I worth that much?”

“Her husband sent her.”

*“Is that the custom here? Tell him I’m not inter-
ested.”

“She’s only brought you an invitation, poor young
woman. Can’t you see her and thank her and say no?
She seems half-afraid to go back unless she can say
that she ha» talked to you. You aren’t afraid of her,
are you ?”

“Perhaps. In a ’vay.”

“Forgive me for saying it, M. Querry, but you
don’t strike me as a man who is afraid of women.”

“Have you nr vei come across a leper, father, who
is afraid of striking his fingers because he knot's they
won’t hiyt any more ?”

“I’ve known men rejoice when the feeling returns -
even pain? But you have to give pain a chance.”

“One can have a mirage of pain. Ask the ampu-
tated. All right, father, bring her in. It’s a great deal
better than seeing her wretched husband anyway.”

The Superior opened the door, and there the girl
was on the threshold, in the glare of sun, caught with
her mouth open, like someone surprised by a camera
in a night-club, looking up in the flash, with an un-
gainly grimace of pain. She turned sharply round and
walked away to where her car was parked and they
heard her inefficient* attempts at starting. The
Superior followed her. A line of women returning from

9 *

the market delayed him. He scampered a little way
after the car, the cheroot still in his mouth and his
white sun-helmet tip- til ted, but she drove away under
the big arch which bore the name of the leproserie, her
boy watching his antics curiously through the side-
window. HA came limping back because he had stub-
bed a toe.

“Silly child,” he said, “why didn’t* she stay in my
room? She could have spent the night with the nuns.
She’ll never get to the Perrins’ by dark. I only hope her
boy’s reliable.”

“Do you suppose she heard ?”

“Of course she heard. You didn’t exactly lower
your voice when you spoke of Rycker. If you love a
man it can’t be very pleasant to hear how unwel-
come ...”

“And it’s far worse, father, when you don’t love
him at all.”

“Of course she loves him. He’s her husband.”

“Loye isn’t one of the commonest charactei^stics of
marriage, father.”

“They’re both Catholics.”

“Nor is it* of Catholics.”

“She’s a very good young woman,” the Superior
said obstinately.

“Yes, father. And what a desert she must liv*: in out
there alone with that man.” He looked at the letter
which lay on his cLsk and that phrase of immolation
which everyone used and some people meant - “ toute
& foi”. It occurred to him that one could still feel the
reflection of another’s pain when one had ceased<*to
feel one’s own. He put the letter in his pocket: it was
fair at least that he should feel The friction of the paper.
“She’s been taken a long way from PendAlA,” he said.

9 *

“What’s PeiuWte?”

“I don’t know - a dance at a friend’s house, a young
man with a shiny simple face, going to Mass on Sun-
day with the family, falling asleep in a single bed
perhaps.”

“People have to grow up. We are called to more
complicated things than that.”

“Are we?”»

. 3 “ ‘When we are a child we think as a child’.”

“I can’t match quotations from the Bible with you,
father, but surely there’s also something about having
to be as little children if we are to inherit . . . We’ve
grown up rather badly. The complications have
become to* complex - we should have stopped with
the amo<*ba no, long before that with the silicates. If
your god wanted an adult world he should have
given us an adult brain.”

“We most of us make our own complications, M.
Qucrry.” ;C< £

“Why did he give us genitals tlien if he wanted us
to thinl^clearly? A doctor doesn’t prescribe marijuana*
for clear thought.”

“I thdlight you said you had no interest in any-
thing.”

“I haven’t. I’ve come through to the other side, to
nothiitg. All the same J*don’t like looking back,” he
said and the letter crackled softly as he shifted.

“Remorse is a kind of belief. r

“Oh no, it isn’t. You try to draw everything into the
net of your faith, father, but you can’t steal all the
virtues. Gentleness isn’t Christian, sclf-sacrifice isn’t
Christian, charity isn’t, remorse isn’t. I expect the
caveman wept to see another’s tears. Haven’t you
even seen a dog weep? In the last cooling of the

93

world, when the emptiness of your belief is finally
exposed, there’ll always be some bemused fool who’ll
cover another’s body with his own to give it warmth
for an hour more of life.”

“You believe that ? But once I remember you say-
ing you wefe incapable of love.”

“I am. The awful thing is I know it would be my
body someone would cover. Almost certainly a
woman. They Have a passion for the dead. Their mis-
sals are stuffed with memorial cards.”

The Superior stubbed out his cheroot and then lit
another as he moved towards the door. Querry called
after him, “I’ve come far enough, haven’t I? Keep
that girl away and her bloody tears.” He struck his
hand furiously on the table because it seemed to him
that he had used a phrase applicable only to the
stigmata.

When the Superior had gone Querry called to Deo
Gratias. The man came in propped on his three toe-
less fee/. He looked to see if the wash-basin ^needed
emptying.

“It’s not that,” Querry said. “Sit down. I want to
ask you something.”

The man put down his staff and squatted on the
ground. Even the act of sitting was awkward without
toes or fingers. Querry lit a cigarette and put it in the
man’s mouth. He said, “Next time you try to leave
here, will you take-.sle with you ?”

The man made no answer. Querry said, “No, you
needn’t answer. Of course you won’t. Tell me, Deo
Gratias, what was the water like ? Like the big river
out there ?”

The man shook his head.

“Like the lake at Bikoro ?”

94

“No.”

“What was it like, Deo Gratias?”

“It fell from the sky.”

“A waterfall?” But the word had no meaning to
Deo Gratias in this flat region of river and deep bush.

“You were a child in those days on your mother’s
back. Were there many other children ?”

He shook hi* head.

“Tell me what happened?”

“ Nous itions heureux Deo Gratias said.

95

Part XV

Chapter One

i

Querry and Doctor Colin sat on the steps of the hos-
pital in the cool of the early day. Every pillar had its
shadow and every shadow its crouching patient.
Across the road the Superior stood at the altar saying
Mass, for it was a Sunday morning. The church had
open sidesjp except for a lattice of bricks to break the
sun, so that Querry and Colin were able to watch the
congregation cut into shapes like a jig-saw pattern,
the nuns on chairs in the front row and behind them
the lepers sitting on long benches raised a foot from
the ground, built of stone because stone could be dis-
infected more thoroughly and quickly than \4;ood. At
this distance it was a gay scene with the broken sun
spangled on the white nuns’ robes and the bright
mammy ^cloths of the women. The rings which the
women wore round their thighs jingled like rosaries
when they knelt to pray, and all the mutilations were
healed by distance and jDy the brickwork which hid
their feet. Beyond the doctor H on the top step sat the
old man with elephantiasis, his^Stee^tum supported on
the step below. They talked in a whisper, so that their
voices would not disturb the Mass which went on
across the way - a whisper, a tinkle, a jingle, a shuffle,
private movements of^hich they had both almost for-
gotten the meaning, it was so long since they had
taken any part.

99

“Is it really impossible to operate ?” Querry asked.

“Too risky. His heart mightn’t stand the anaes-
thetic."

“Has he got to carry that thing around then till
death?”

“Yes. It 'doesn’t weigh as much as you would
think. But it seems unfair, doesn’t it, to suffer all that
and leprosy too.”

In the church there was a sigh and a shuffle as the
congregation sat. The doctor said, “One day I’ll
screw some money out of someone and have a few’*
wheel-chairs made for the worst cases. He would need
a special one, of course. Could a famous ecclesias-
tical architect design a chair for swollen balls?”

“I’ll get you out a blue print,” Querry said.

The voice of the Superior reached them from
across the road. He was preaching in a mixture of
French and Creole; even a Flemish phrase crept in
here and there, and a word or two that Querry
assumed to be Mongo or some other tongue of the
river tribes. ,

“And I tell you truth I was ashamed when this man
he said to me, ‘You Klistians are all big thieves - you
steal this, you steal that, you steal all the time. Oh, I
know you don’t steal money. You don’t creep into
Thomas Olo’s hut and take bis new radio-set, but you
are thieves all the same Worse thieves than that. You
see a man who livpfl**vith one wife and doesn’t beat her
and looks after her when she gets a bad pain from
medicines at the hospital, and you say that’s Klistian
love. You go to the courthouse and you hear a goed
judge, who say to the piccin tljat stole sugar from the
white man’s cupboard, ‘You’re a very sorry piccin. I
not punish you, and you, you will not come here

ioo

again. No more sugar palaver,’ and you say that’s
Klistian mercy. But you are a mighty big thief when
you say that - for you steal this man’s love and that
man’s mercy. Why do you not say when you see man
with knife in his back bleeding and dying, ‘There’s
Klistian anger’ ?”

“I really believe he’s answering something I sayl to
him,” Querry said with a twitch of the mouth that
Gplin was beginning to recognise as a rudimentary
smile, “but I didn’t put it quite like that.”

“Why not say when Henry Okapa got a new bicycle
and someone came and tore his brake, ‘There’s Klis-
tian envy.’ You are like a man who steals only the
good fruiUand leaves the bad fruit rotting on the tree.

“All right. You tell me I’m number one thief, but
I say you make big mistake. Any man may defend
himself before his judge. All of you in this church, you
are my judges now, and this is my defence.”

“It’s a long time since I listened to a sermon,”
Doctqr Colin said. “It brings back the long tedious
hours qf childhood, doesn’t it?”

“You pray to Yezu,” the Superior was saying. He
twisted his mouth from habit as though he were des-
patching a cheroot from one side to the other. “But
Yezu is not just a holy man. Yezu is God and Yezu
mad^the world. When you make a song you are in the
song, when you bake bread you are in the bread, when
you make a baby you are in't’hehaby, and because
Yezu made you, he is in you. When you love it is
Yezu who loves, when you are merciful it is Yezu who
is merciful. But when you hate or envy it is not Yezu,
for everything that ^ezu made is good. Bad things
are not there - they are nothing. Hate means no love.
Envy means no justice. They are just empty spaces,

IOI

where Yezu ought to be.”

"He begs a lot of questions,” Doctor Colin said.

"Now I tell you that when a man loves, he must be
Klistian. When a man is merciful he must be Klistian.
In this village do you think you are the only Klistians -
you who come to church ? There is a doctor who lives
neap the well beyond Marie Akimbu’s house and he
prays to Nzambe and he makes bad medicine. He wor-
ships a false God, but once when a piccin was ill and
his father and mother were in the hospital he took no
money; he gave bad medicine but he took no money:
he made a big God palaver with Nzambe for the
piccin but took no money. I tell you then he was a
Klistian, a better Klistian than the man who broke
Henry Okapa’s bicycle. He not believe in Yezu, but
he a Klistian. I am not a thief, who steal away his
charity to give to Yezu. I give back to Yezu only what
Yezu made. Yezu made love, he made mercy. Every-
body in the world has something that Yezu made.
Everybody in the world is that much a Klistian. So
how can I be a thief? There is no man so wicked he
never once in his life show in his heart something that
God made.” *

“That would make us both Christians,” Querry
said. "Do you feel a Christian, Colin ?”

“I’m not interested,” Colut said. "I wish Ghrist-
ianity could reduce the .price of cortisone, that’s all.
Let’s go.”

"1 hate simplifications,” Querry said, and sat on.

The Superior said, "I do not tell you to do good
things for the lovo of God. That is very hard. Too hard
for most of us. It is much easier ty show mercy because
a child weeps or to love because a girl or a young man
pleases your eye. That’s not wrong, that’s good. Only

102

remember that the love you feel and the mercy you
show were made in you by God. You must go on
using them and perhaps if you pray Klistian prayers
it makes it easier for you to show mercy a second time
and a third time ...”

“And to love a second and a third girl,” Querry said.

“Why not ?” the doctor asked.

“Mercy . ». love ...” Querry said. “Hasn’t he
e^er known people to kill with love and kill with
mercy ? When a priest speaks those words they sound
as though they had no meaning outside the vestry and
the guild-meetings.”

“I think that is the opposite of what he’s trying to
say.”

“Does he want us to blame God for love ? I’d rather
blame man. If there is a God, let him be innocent at
least. Come away, Colin, before you are converted and
believe yourself an unconcious Christian.”

They rose and w alked past the mutter of the Credo
towards the dispensary. %

“Poor man,” Colin said. “It’s a hard life, and he
doesn't get many thanks. He does his best for every-
body. If he believes I’m a crypto-Christian it’s con-
venient for me, isn’t it ? There arc many priests who
wouldn’t be happy to work with an atheist for a
colleague.”

“He should have learnt from you that it’s possible
for an intelligent man to makt-his life without a god.”

“My life is easier than his - I have a routine that
fills my day. I know when a man is cured by the
negative skin-tests. There are no skin-tests for a good
action. What were your motives, Querry, when you
followed your boy into the forest ?”

“Curiosity. Pride. Not Klistian love, I assure you.”

103

Colin said, “All the same you talk as if you’d lost
something you’d loved. I haven’t. I think I have
always liked my fellow men. Liking is a great deal
safer than love. It doesn’t demand victims. Who is
your victim, Querry ?”

“I have nohe now. I’m safe. I’m cured, Colin,” he
added without conviction.

2

Father Paul took a helping of what was meant to be a <
cheese souffle, then poured himself out a glass of
water to ease it down. He said, “Querry is wise today
to lunch with the doctor. Can’t you persuade the
sisters to vary the plat du jour ? Sunday after all is a
feast-day.”

“This is meant to be a treat for us,” the Superior
said. “They believe we look forward to it all through
the week. I wouldn’t like to disillusion the poor
things. They use a lot of eggs.”

All the cooking for the priests’ house was done by
the nuns and the food had to be carried a quarter of a
mile in the sun. It had never occurred to the nans that
this might be disastrous for souffles and omelettes
r and even for after-dmner coffee.

Father Thomas said, “I do not think Querry minds
much about his food.” He was the only priest in the
leproserie with whom^tiie Superior felt ill at ease; he
still seemed to carr^ with him the strains and anxieties
of the seminary. He had left it longer ago than any
of the others, bu* he seemed doomed to a perpetual
and unhappy youth ; he was ill at ease with men who
had grown up and were mor^ concerned over the
problems of the electric-light plant or the quality of

104

the brickmaking than over the pursuit of souls. Souk
could wait. Souls had eternity.

“Yes, he’s a good enough guest,” the Superior said,
steering a little away from the course that he sus-
pected Father Thomas wished to pursue.

“HeV a remarkable man,” Father Thomas said,
struggling to regain direction.

“We have enough funds now,” the Superior
said at large, “for an electric fan ih the delivery-
ward.”

* “We’ll have air-conditioning in our rooms yet,”
Father Jean said, “and a drug-store and all the latest
movie magazines including pictures of Brigitte Bar-
dot.” Father Jean was tall, pale and concave with a
beard which struggled like an unpruncd hedge. He
had once been a brilliant moral theologian before he
joined the order and now he carefully nurtured the
character of a film-fan, as though it would help him
to wipe out an ugly past.

“I’d rather have a boiled egg for Sunday Junch,”
Father Paul said.

“You Wouldn’t like stale eggs boiled,” Father Jean
said, helpcng himself to more souffle; in spite of his
cadaverous appearance he had a Flemish appetite.

“They wouldn’t be stale,” Father Joseph said, “if
they oifly learnt to manage the chickens properly. I’d
be quite ready to put some of my men on to building
them proper houses for intensi^fc production. It would
be easy enough to carry the electric £ower down from
their houses ...”

# Brother Philippe spoke for the first time. He was
always reluctant to intrude on the conversation of
men who he considefbd belonged to another less
mundane world. “Electric fans, chicken houses; be

105

careful, father, or you will be overloading the dynamos
before you’ve done.”

The Superior was aware that Father Thomas was
smouldering at his elbow. He said tactfully, "And the
new classroom, father? Have you everything that’s
needed ?” '

"Everything but a catechist who knows the first
tmng about his faith.”

"Oh well, so long as he can teach the alphabet.
First things first.”

“I should have thought the Catechism was ratho*’*’
more important than the alphabet.”

"Rycker was on the telephone this morning,”
Father Jean said, coming to the Superiors rescue.

"What did he want ?”

"Querry of course. He said he had a message -
something about an Englishman, but he refused to
give it. He threatened to be over one day soon, when
the ferries are working again. I asked him if he could
bring rpe some film-magazines, but he said he didn’t
read them. He also wants to borrow Father Garrigou-
Lagrange on Predestination.”

"There are moments,” the Superior «aid with
moderation, “when I almost regret M. Querry’s
arrival.”

“Surely we should be very glad,” Father Thomas
said, "of any small inconvenience he may bring us.
We don’t live a ver/troubled life.” The helping of
souffle he had ta&en remained untasted on his plate.
He kneaded a piece of bread into a hard pellet and
washed it down like a pill. "You can’t expect people
to leave us alone while he is here. It’s not only that
he’s a famous man. He’s a maff of profound faith.”

“I hadn’t noticed it,” Father Paul said. “He wasn’t

106

at Mass this morning,” The Superior lit another
cheroot.

“Oh yes he was. I can tell you his eyes never left the
altar. He was sitting across the way with the sick.
That’s as good a way of attending Mass as sitting up in
front with his back to the lepers, isn’t it ?”

Father Paul opened his mouth to reply, but tjje
Superior stopped him with a covert wink. “At any
rat^it is a charitable way of putting it,” the Superior
said. He balanced his cheroot on the edge of his
plate and rose to give thanks. Then he crossed himself
and picked up his cheroot again. “Father Thomas,”
he said, “can you spare me a minute ?”

He led the way to his room and installed Father
Thomas in tin' one easy chair that he kept for visitors
by the filing-cabinet. Father Thomas watched him
tensely, sitting bolt upright, like a cobra watching a
mongoose. “Have a cheroot, father?”

“You know I don’t smoke.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I was thinking of someone
else. Is that chair uncomfortable? I’m afraid the
springs may have gone. It’s foolish having springs in
the tropic 1 ?, but it was given us with a lot ol junk ...”

“It’s quite comfortable, thank you.”

“I’m sorry you don’t find your catechist satis-
factory? It’s not so easy to (jnd a good one now that we
have three classes for boys. The nuns seem to manage
better than we do.”

“Only if you consider Marie Ak*imbu a suitable
teacher.”

•“She works very hard I’m told by Mother Agnes.”

“Certainly, if you call having a baby every year by a
different man hard work. I can’t see that it’s right
allowing her to teach with her cradle in the class.

107

She’s pregnant again. What kind of an example is
that?”

“Oh well, you know, autres pays autres maurs. We
are here to help, father, not condemn, and I don’t
think we can teach the sisters their business. They
know the young woman better than we do. Here, you
n\ust remember, there are few people who know their
own fathers. The children belong to the mother. Per-
haps that’s why they prefer us, and the Mother of
God, to the Protestants.” The Superior searched for
words. “Let me see, father, you’ve been with us now^
it must be over two years?”

“Two years next month.”

“You know you don’t eat enough. That souffld
wasn’t exactly inviting ...”

“I have no objection to the souffle. I happen to be
fasting for a private intention.”

“Of course you have your confessor’s consent ?”

“It wasn’t necessary for just one day, father.”

“Tha-souffle day was a good day to choose then, but
you know this climate is very difficult for Europeans,
especially at the beginning. By the time our leave
comes at the end of six years we have beccftne accus-
tomed to it. Sometimes I almost dread going home.
The first years . . . one mustn’t drive oneself.”

“I am not aware of drivigg myself unduly, Either. ”

“Our first duty, yoi^’now, is to survive, even if that
means taking things a little more easily. You have a
great spirit of seif-sacrifice, father. It’s a wonderful
quality, but it’s not always what’s required on the
battlefield. The good soldier doesn’t court death.”r

“I am quite unaware . . . ”

“We all of us have a feeling of frustration some-
times. Poor Marie Akimbu, we have to take the

108

material we have to hand. I’m not sure that you’d find
better material in some of the parishes of Liege,
though sometimes I’ve wondered whether perhaps
you might be happier there. The African mission is
not for everyone. If a man feels himself ill-adapted
here, there’s no defeat -in asking for a transfer. Do you
sleep properly, father ?”

“I have enofegh sleep.”

tjPerhaps you ought to have a check-up with
Doctor Colin. It’s wonderful what a pill will do at the
right time.”

“Father, why are you so against M. Querry?”

“I hope I’m not. I’m unaware of it.”

“What ether man in his position - he’s world-
famous, f.ulu r. even though Father Paul may never
have heard of him - would bury himself here, helping
with the hospital ?”

“I don’t look for motives, Father Thomas. I hope I
accept what he does with gratitude.”

“Well, I do look for motives. I’ve been taking to
Deo Gratias. I hope I would have done what he did,
going out at night into the bush looking for a servant,
but I doifbt ...”

“Are you afraid of the dark ?”

“I’m not ashamed to say that I am.”

“Tlfen it would have ijecded more courage in your
case. I have still to find what does frighten M.
Querry.”

“Well, isn’t that heroic?”

“Oh no. I am disturbed by a man without fear as I
would be by a man without a heart. Fear saves us from
so many things. Not that I’m saying, of course, that M.
Querry ...” *

“Does it show a lack of heart staying beside his boy
109

all night, praying for him?”

“They are telling that story in the city, I know, but
did he pray? It’s not what M. Querry told the doc-
tor.”

“I asked Deo Gratias. He said yes. I asked him what
prayers - the Ave Maria, I asked him? He said yes.”

“Father Thomas, when you have been in Africa a
little longer, you will learn not to asi: an African a
question which may be answered by yes. It is their
form of courtesy to agree. It means nothing at all.”

“I think after two years I can tell when an Africa!*?"
is lying.”

“Those are not lies. Father Thomas, I can well
understand why you are attracted to Querry. You are
both men of extremes. But in our way of life, it is
better for us not to have heroes - not live heroes, that
is. The saints should be enough for us.”

“You are not suggesting there are not live saints?”

“Of course not. But don’t let’s recognise them
before the Church does. We shall be saved a lot of
disappointment that way.”

•3

Father Thomas stood by his netted door staring
through the wire-mesh at tfrp ill-lighted avenuh of the
leproserie. Behind himpn his table he had prepared a
candle and the flame shone palely below the bare
electric globe; in* five minutes all the lights would go
out. This was the moment he feared ; prayers were of
no avail to heal the darkness. The Superior’s words
had reawakened his longing for Europe. Li£ge might
be an ugly and brutal city, but there was no hour of
the night when a man, lifting his curtain, could not

no

sec a light shining on the opposite wall of the street or
perhaps a late passer-by going home. Here at ten
o’clock, when the dynamos ceased working, it needed
an act of faith to know that the forest had not come up
to the threshold of the room. Sometimes it seemed to
him th&t he could hear the leaves brushing on the
mosquito-wire. He looked at his watch - four minutes
to go.

had admitted to the Superior that he was
afraid of the dark. But the Superior had brushed away
his fear as of no account. He felt an enormous longing
to confide, but it was almost impossible to confide in
men of his own Order, any more than a soldier could
admit his cowardice to another soldier. He couldn’t
say to the Superior, “Every night I pray that I won’t
be summoned to attend someone dying in the hospital
or in his kitchen, that I won’t have to light the lamp of
my bicycle and pedal through the dark.” A few weeks
ago an old man had so died, but it was Father Joseph
who went out to find the corpse where it sat ii^i rickety
deck-chair with some fetish or other for Nzambe
placed fn its lap and a holy medal round its neck; he
had give*i conditional absolution by the light of the
bicycle-lamp because there were no candles to be
found.

He Relieved that the Superior grudged the admir-
ation he felt for Querry. flis companions, it seemed to
him, spent their lives with small concerns which they
could easily discuss together - the ctost of footbaths, a
fault in the dynamo, a holdup at the brick-kiln, but
tJie things which worried him he could discuss with no
one. He envied the happily married man who had a
ready confidante at Bed and board. Father Thomas
was married to the Church and the Church responded

in

to his confidence only in the cliches of the confessional.
He remembered how even in the seminary his confes-
sor had checked him whenever he had gone further
than the platitudes ofhis problem. The word “scruple”
was posted like a traffic sign in whichever direction the
mind drove.* ‘I want to talk, I want to talk,’* Father
Thomas cried silently to himself as all the lights went
out and the beat of the dynamos stopped. Somebody
came down the verandah in the dark; the steps
passed the room of Father Paul and would have
passed his own if he had not called out, “Is it youf
M. Querry?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t you come in for a moment ?”

Querry opened the door and came into the small
radiance of the candle'. He said, ‘Tve been explaining
to the Superior the difference between a bidet and a
footbath.”

“Please won’t you sit down ? I can never sleep so
early as |his and my eyes are not good enough to read
by candle-light.” Already in one sentence he had ad-
mitted more to Querry than he had ever done to his
Superior, foe he knew that the Superior w&uld only
too readily have given him a torch and permission to
read for as long as he liked after the lights went out,
but that permission would have drawn attention to
his weakness. Querry lqpkea for a chair. There was
only one and Father Thomas began to pull back the
mosquito-net frorli the bed.

“Why not come to my room?” Querry asked. “I
have some whisky there.” c

“Today I am fasting,” Father Thomas said.
“Please take the chair. I will "sit here.” The candle
burnt straight upwards to its smoky tip like a crayon.

1 12

“I hope you are happy here,” Father Thomas said.

“Everyone has been very kind to me.”

“You are the first visitor to stay here since I
came.”

“Is that so?”

Father Thomas’s long narrow nose was oddly
twisted at the end ; it gave him the effect of smelling
sideways at sortie elusive odour. “Time is needed to
settle in a place like this.” He laughed nervously.
“I’m not sure that I’m settled myself yet.”

*►“1 can understand that,” Querry said mechanically
for want of anything better to say, but the bromide was
swallowed like wine by Father Thomas.

“Yes, you have great understanding. I sometimes
think a layman has more capacity for understanding
than a priest. Sometimes,” he added, “more faith.”

“That’s certainly not true in my case,” Querry
said.

“I have told this to no one else,” Father Thomas
said as though he were handing over some jfrecious
object which would leave Querry forever in his debt.
“When I finished at the seminary I sometimes thought
that only hy martyrdom could I save myself - if I
could die before I lost everything.”

“On^ doesn’t die,” Querry said.

“I wanted to be sent to*China, but they wouldn’t
accept me.”

“Your work here must be just as valuable,” Querry
said, dealing out his replies quickly aAd mechanically
like cards.

•“Teaching the alphabet?” Father Thomas shifted
on the bed and the drap^ of mosquito-net fell over his
face like a bride’s veil or a beekeeper’s. He turned it
back and it fell again, as though even an inanimate

“3

object had enough consciousness to know the best
moment to torment.

“Well, it’s time for bed,” Querry said.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m keeping you up. I’m tiring
you.”

“Not at all,” Querry said. “Besides I sleep badly.”

, “You do ? It’s the heat. I can’t sleep for more than a
few hours.”

“I could let you have some pills.”

“Oh no, no, thank you. I must learn somehow -
this is the place God has sent me to.”

“Surely you volunteered?”

“Of course, but if it hadn’t been His will ...”

“Perhaps it’s his will that you should take a nem-
butal. Let me fetch you one.”

“It does me so much more good just to talk to you
for a little. You know in a community one doesn’t
talk - about anything important. I’m not keeping you
from your work, am I ?”

“I c£*n’t work by candlelight.”

“I’ll release you very soon,” Father Thomas said,
smiling weakly and then fell silent again. The forest
might be approaching, but for once he Hhd a com-
panion. Querry sat with his hands between his knees
waiting. A mosquito hummed near the candle-flame.
The dangerous desire tq confide grew in' Father
Thomas’s mind like the pressure of an orgasm. He
said, “You won’t understand how much one needs,
sometimes, to hive one’s faith fortified by talking to a
man who believes.”

Querry said, “You have the fathers.”

“We talk only about the dynamo and the schools.”
He said, “Sometimes I think if I stay here I’ll lose my
faith altogether. Can you understand that?”

“Oh yes, I can understand that. But I think it’s
your confessor you should talk to, not me.”

“Deo Gratias talked to you, didn’t he?”

“Yes. A little.”

“You make people talk. Rycker ...”

“God forbid.” Querry moved restlessly on the hard
chair. “What I would say to you wouldn’t help you jit
all. You must bfelieve that. I’m not a man of- faith.”

“Xpu are a man of humility,” Father Thomas said.
“We’ve all noticed that.”

W'lfyou knew the extent of my pride ...”

“Pride which builds churches and hospitals is not
so bad a pride.”

“You mustn’t use me to buttress your faith, father.
I’d be the we.ik spot. I don’t want to say anything that
could disturb you more - but I’ve nothing for you -
nothing. I wouldn’t even call myself a Catholic unless
I were in the army or in a prison. I am a legal Catholic,
that’s all.”

“We»both of us have our doubts,” Father Thomas
said. “Perhaps I have more than you. They even come
to me at the altar with the Host in my hands.”

“I’ve lohg ceased to have doubts. Father, if I must
speak plainly, I don’t believe at all. Not at all. I’ve
worked^ it out of my system - like women. I’ve no
desire to convert others to^disbelief, or even to worry
them. I want to keep my mouth shut, if only you’d let

99

me.

“You can’t think what a lot of g£>od our conver-
sation has done me,” Father Thomas said with excite-
ment. “There’s not a priest here to whom I can talk as
we’re talking. One sometimes desperately needs a man
who has experienced the same weaknesses as oneself.”

“But you’ve misunderstood me, father.”

IX 5

“Don’t you see that perhaps you’ve been given the
grace of aridity ? Perhaps even now you are walking in
the footsteps of St. John of the Cross, the noche oscura .”

“You are so very far from the truth,” Querry said,
making a movement with his hands of bewilderment
or rejection

, “I’ve watched you here,” Father Thomas said, “I
am capable of judging a man’s actions;.” He leant for-
ward until his face was not very far from Querry’s and
Querry could smell the lotion Father Thomas used
against mosquito-bites. “For the first time since I came
to this place, I feel I can be of use. If you ever have the
need to confess, always remember I am here.”

“The only confession I am ever likely to make,”
Querry said, “would be to an examining magis-
trate.”

“Ha, ha.” Father Thomas caught the joke in mid-
air and confiscated it like a schoolboy’s ball under his
soutane. He said, “Those doubts you have. I can
assure fou I know them too. But couldn’t we .perhaps
go over together the philosophical arguments ... to
help us both?”

“They wouldn’t help me, father. Any siiteen-year-
old student could demolish them, and anyway I need
no help. I don’t want to be harsh, father, but I don’t
wish to believe. I’m curecj,”

“Then why do I get' more sense of faith from you
than from anyone here ?”

“It’s in your 6wn mind, father. You are looking for
faith and so I suppose you find it. But I’m not looking.
I don’t want any of the things I’ve known and lost* If
faith were a tree growing atjthe end of the avenue, I
promise you I’d never go that way. I don’t mean to say
anything to hurt you, father. I would help you if I

116

could. If you feel in pain because you doubt, it is
obvious that you are feeling the pain of faith, and I
wish you luck.”

“You really do understand, don’t you?” Father
Thomas said, and Querry could not restrain an ex-
pression of tired despair. “Don’t be irritated. Perhaps
I know you better than you do yourself. I havei^’t
found so much Understanding, ‘not in all Israel’ if you
can cgll the community that. You have done so much
good. Perhaps - another night - we could have a talk
again. On our problems - yours and mine.”

“Perhaps, but ”

“And pray for me, M. Querry. I would value
your prayers.”

“I don’t pray.”

“I have heard differently from Deo Gratias,”
Father Thomas said, fetching up a smile like a
liquorice-stick, dark and sweet and prehensile. He
said, “There are interior prayers, the prayers of
silence. There are even unconcious prayers wMen men
have goodwill. A thought from you may be a prayer
in the eyes of God. Think of me occasionally, M.
Querry.” 9

“Of course.”

“I wjuld like to be of help to you as you have been
to me.” He paused as though he were waiting for some
appeal, but Querry only puNa hand to his face and
brushed away the sticky tendrils which a spider had
left dangling between him and thtf door. “I shall
sleep tonight,” Father Thomas said, threateningly.

uy

Chapter Two

I

About twice a month the Bishop’s boat was due to
come in with the heavier provisions for the leproserie,
but sometimes many weeks went by without a vi«it.
They waited for it with forced patience; perhaps the
captain of the Otraco boat which brought the mail
would also bring news of her small rival - a snag in the
river might have pierced its bottom: it might be
stranded on a mud-bank; perhaps the rudder had
been twisted in collision with a fallen tree-trunk; or
the captain might be down with fever or have been ap-
pointed a professor of Greek by the Bishop who had
not yettfound a priest to take his place. It was not a
very popular job among members of the Order. No
knowledge of navigation was required, not even of
machinery, for the African mate was ‘in virtual
'charge of the engine and the bridge. Four weeks of
loneliness on the river every trip, the attempt^ at each
halt to discover some cygo which had not been
pledged to Otraco, suck a life compared unfavourably
with employment at the cathedral in Luc or even at a
seminary in the 1 bush.

It was dusk when the inhabitants of the leproserie
heard the bell of the long-overdue boat; the sound
came to Colin and Querry w^ere they sat over the first
drink of the evening on the doctor’s verandah. “At
last,” Colin said, finishing his whisky, “if only they

118

have brought the new X-ray ...”

White flowers had opened with twilight on the long
avenue ; fires were being lit for the evening meal, and
the mercy of darkness was falling at last over the ugly
and the deformed. The wrangles of the night had not
yet begurf, and peace was there, something you could
touch like a petal or smell like wood-smoke. Querry
said to Colin, ‘<You know I am happy here.” He
closet^ his mouth on the phrase too late; it had
escaped him on the sweet evening air like an
admission.

2

“I remember the day you came,” Colin said. “You
were walking up this road and I asked you how long
you were going to stay. You said - do you remem-
ber? ”

But Querry was silent and Colin saw that he already
regretted having spoken at all.

The white boat came slowly round the bend of the
river; a lantern was alight at the bow, and the pres-
sure-lamp Was burning in the saloon. A black figure,
naked except for a loin-cloth, was poised with a rope
on the ppntoon, preparing to throw it. The fathers in
their white soutanes gathered on the verandah like
moths round a treacle-jar,' 'wjd when Colin looked
behind him he could see the glow of the Superior’s
cheroot following them down the road.

Colin and Querry halted at the top of the steep bank
above the river. An African dived in from the pontoon
and swam ashore as the engines petered out. He
caught the rope and made it fast around a rock and the
topheavy boat eased in. A sailor pushed a plank

n 9

across for a woman who came ashore carrying two
live turkeys on her head; she fussed with her mammy-
cloths, draping and redraping them about her waist.

“The great world comes to us,” Colin said.

“What do you mean ?”

The captttin waved from the window of the saloon.
Along the narrow deck the door of the Bishop’s cabin
was closed, but a faint light shone through the mos-
quito-netting.

“Oh, you never know what the boat may bring.
After all, it brought you.”

“They seem to have a passenger,” Querry said.

The captain gesticulated to them from the window ;
his arm invited them to come aboard. “Has he lost his
voice ?” the Superior said, joining them at the top of
the bank, and cupping his hands he yelled as loudly as
he could, “Well, captain, you are late.” The sleeve of
a white soutane moved in the dusk; the captain had
put a finger to his lips. “In God’s name,” the Superior
said, “«has he got the Bishop on board?” Hf led the
way down the slope and across the gang-plank.

Colin said, “After you.” He was aware of Querry’s
hesitation. He said, “We’ll have a glass of beer. It’s the
custom,” but Querry made no move. “The captain
will be glad to see you again,” he went on, Jiis hand
under Querry’s elbow to help him down the bank. The
Superior was picking feio'way among the women, the
goats and the cooking-pots, which littered the pon-
toon, towards the iron ladder by the engine.

“What you said about the world?” Querry said.
“You don’t really suppose, do you ... ?” and .he
broke off with his eyes on the cabin that he had once
occupied, where the candle-dame was wavering in the
river-draught.

120

“It was a joke,” Colin said. “I ask you - does it look
like the great world ?” Night which came in Africa so
quickly had wiped the whole boat out, except the
candle in the Bishop’s cabin, the pressure-lamp in the
saloon where two white figures silently greeted each
other, and the hurricane-lamp at the foot of the
ladder where a woman sat preparing her husband’s
chop.

“Let’s go,” Querry said.

At the top of the ladder the captain greeted them.
He*said, “So you are still here, Querry. It is a pleasure
to see you again.” He spoke in a low voice; he might
have been exchanging a confidence. In the saloon the
beer was already uncapped and awaiting them. The
captain shut the door and for the first time raised his
voice. He said, “Drink up quickly, Doctor Colin. I
have a patient for you.”

“One of the crew ?”

“Not one of the crew,” the captain said, raising his
glass. “A real passenger. I’ve only had two realyiassen-
gers in two years, first there was M. Querry and now
this man. A passenger who pays, not a father.”

“Who isTie?”

“He comes from the great world,” the captain said,
echoing -Colin’s phrase. “It has been difficult for me.
He speaks no Flemish and very little French, and that
made it yet more complicalM when he went down
with fever. I am very glad to be here,” he said and
seemed about to lapse into his morfi usual silence.

“Why has he come ?” the Superior asked.

•“How do I know ? I tell you - he speaks no French.”

“Is he a doctor?”

“He is certainly not a doctor or he wouldn’t be so
frightened of a little fever.”

121

“Perhaps I should see him right away,” Colin said.
“What language does he speak?”

“English. I tried him in Latin,” the captain said. “I
even tried him in Greek, but it was no good.”

“I can speak English,” Querry said with reluctance.

“How is His fever?” Colin asked.

“This is the worst day. Tomorrow it will be better.

\ said to him, ‘Finitum est,’ but I think he believed
that I meant he was dying.”

“Where did you pick him up ?”

“At Luc. He had some kind of introduction torthe ’
Bishop - from Rycker, I think. He had missed the
Otraco boat.”

Colin and Querry went down the narrow deck to
the Bishop’s cabin. Hanging at the end of the deck was
the misshapen lifebelt looking like a dried eel, the
steaming shower, the lavatory with the broken door,
and beside it the kitchen-table and the hutch where
two rabbits munched in the dark; nothing, except
presumably the rabbits, had changed. Colin opened
the cabin-door, and there was the photograph of the
church under snow, but in the rumpled bed which
Querry had somehow imagined would still 1 bear, like a
hare’s form, his own impression, lay the naked body of
a very fat man. His neck as he lay on his back was
forced into three ridges like gutters and the sweat
filled them and drained' round the curve of his head
on to the pillow.

“I suppose we’ll have to take him ashore,” Colin
said. “If there’s a spare room at the fathers’.” On
the table stood a Rolleifiex-camera and a portable
Remington, and inserted in the typewriter was a sheet
of paper on which the man had begun to type. When
Querry brought the candle closer he could read one

sentence in English: “The eternal forest broods along
the banks unchanged since Stanley and his little
band”. It petered out without punctuation. Colin
lifted the man’s wrist and felt his pulse. He said, “The
captain’s right. He’ll be up in a few days. This sleep
marks the end.”

“Then why not leave him here ?” Querry said.

“Do you know him?”

“I^ve never seen him before.”

“I thought you sounded afraid,” Colin said. “We
can hardly ship him back if he’s paid his passage here.”

The man woke as Colin dropped his wrist. “Are
you the doctor?” he asked in English.

“Yes. My name is Doctor Colin.”

“I’m Parkinson,” the man said firmly as though he
were the sole survivor of a whole tribe of Parkinsons.
“Am I dying?”

“He wants to know if he is dying,” Querry trans-
lated.

Colin jsaid, “You will be all right in a few c^iys.”

“It’s bloody hot,” Parkinson said. He looked at
Querry. ‘Thank God there’s someone here at last who
speaks English.” He turned his head towards the
Remington and said, “The white man’s grave.”

. ;. Yo ^ geography’s wrong. This is not West
Africa,*' Querry corrected him with dry dislike.

“They won’t know the bib^dy difference,” Parkin-
son said.

“And Stanley never came this way»” Querry went
on, without attempting to disguise his antagonism.

*“Oh yes he did. This river’s the Congo, isn’t it ?”

“No. You left the Congo a week ago after Luc.”

The man said again* ambiguously, “They won’t
know the bloody difference. My head’s splitting.”

123

“He’s complaining about his head,” Querry told
Cohn.

“Tell him I’ll give him something when we’ve taken
him ashore. Ask him if he can walk as far as the
fathers’. He would be a terrible weight to carry.”

“Walk!” Parkinson exclaimed. He twisted his head
and the sweat-gutters drained on to the pillow. “Do
you want to kill me ? It would be a bl#ody good story,
wouldn’t it, for everyone but me. Parkinson buried
where Stanley once ...”

“Stanley was never here,” Querry said.

“I don’t care whether he was or not. Why keep
bringing it up ? I’m bloody hot. There ought to be a
fan. If the chap here is a doctor, why can’t he take me
to a proper hospital ?”

“I doubt if you’d like the hospital we have,” Querry
said. “It’s for lepers.”

“Then I’ll stay where I am.”

“The boat returns to Luc tomorrow.”

Parkjpson said, “I can’t understand what the doc-
tor says. Is he a good doctor? Gan I trust him?”

“Yes, he’s a good doctor.” '

“But they never tell the patient, do they*?” Parkin-
son said. “My old man died thinking he only had a
duodenal ulcer.”

“You are not dying. You have got a touch of
malaria, that’s all. You grZ over the worst. It would be
much easier for all of us if you’d walk ashore. Unless
you want to retjxm to Luc.”

“When I start a job,” Parkinson said obscurely, “I
finish a job.” He wiped his neck dry with his fingejp.
“My legs are like butter,” he said. “I must have lost a
couple of stone. It’s the strain on the heart I’m
afraid of.”

124

“It’s no use,” Querry told Colin. “We’ll have to
have him carried.”

“I will see what can be done,” Colin said and left
them. When they were alone, Parkinson said, “Can
you use a camera?”

“Of ctsursc.”

“With a flash bulb?”

“Yes.”

said, “Would you do me a favour and take some
pictures of me carried ashore? Get as much atmos-
phere in as you can - you know the kind of thing,
black faces gathered round looking worried and sym-
pathetic.”

“Why should they be worried ?”

“You can easily fix that,” Parkinson said. “They’ll
be worried enough anyway in case they drop me - and
they won’t know the difference.”

“What do you want the picture for?”

“It’s the kind of thing they like to have. You can’t
mistrusf a photograph, or so people think^Do you
know, since you came into the cabin and I could talk
again, I'Ve been feeling better? I’m not sweating so
much, am I ? And my head ...” He twisted it ten-
tatively and gave a groan again. “Oh well, if I hadn’t
had th^ malaria, I daresay I’d have had to invent it.
It gives the right touch.”

“I wouldn’t talk so mucitsif I were you.”

“I’m bloody glad the boat-trip’s over, I can tell you
that.”

“Why have you come here ?”
m “Do you know a man called Querry?” Parkinson
said.

The man had struggled round onto his side. The
reflection from the candle shone back from the drib-

125

bles and pools of sweat so that the face apppeared like
a too-travelled road after rain. Querry knew for cer-
tain he had never seen the man before, and yet he
remembered how Doctor Colin had said to him, “The
great world comes to us.”

“Why do you want Querry ?” he asked. «

“It’s my job to want him,” Parkinson said. He
gfoaned again. “It’s no bloody picnic this. You
wouldn’t lie to me, would you, about the doctor?
And what he said?”

“No.”

“It’s my heart, as I told you. Two stone in a week.
This too too solid flesh is surely melting. Shall I tell you
a secret? The daredevil Parkinson is sometimes
damned afraid of death.”

“Who are you?” Querry asked. The man turned
his face away with irritable indifference and closed
his eyes. Soon he was asleep again.

He was still asleep when they carried him off the
boat wrapped in a piece of tarpaulin like a defid body
about to be committed to the deep. It needed six men
to lift him and they got in each other’s way, so that
once as they struggled up the bank, a man slipped and
fell. Querry was in time to prevent the body falling.
The head rammed his chest and the smell of Jiair-oil
poisoned the night. He wasn’t used to supporting such
a weight and he was br^stflhless and sweating as they
got the body over the rise and came on Father Thomas
standing there folding a hurricane-lamp. Another
African took Querry’s place and Querry walked
behind at Father Thomas’s side. Father Thomas said*
“You shouldn’t have done that - a weight like that, in
this heat - it’s rash at your agfe. Who is he ?”

“I don’t know. A stranger.”

126

Father Thomas said, "Perhaps a man can be judged
by his rashness*” The glow of the Superior’s cheroot
approached them through the dark. "You won’t find
much rashness here,” Father Thomas went angrily on.
"Bricks and mortar and the monthly bills - that’s
what w<? think about. Not the Samaritan on the road
to Jericho.”

"Nor do I. C just took a hand for a few minutes,
that’s all.”

"We could all learn from you,” Father Thomas
sj\jd, taking Querry’s arm above the elbow as though
he were an old man who needed the support of a
disciple.

The Superior overtook them. He said, "I don’t
know where \ 'c are going to put him. We haven’t a
room free.”

"Let him share mine. There’s room for the two of
us,” Father Thomas said, and he squeezed Querry’s
arm as if he wished to convey to him, T at least have
learnt your lesson. I am not as my brothers are.’

1*7

Chapter Three

i

Doctor Colin had before him a card which carried the
outline-drawing of a man. He had made the drawing
himself; the cards he had ordered in Luc because ,Jie
despaired of obtaining any like them from home. The
trouble was they cost too little ; the invoices had fallen
like fine dust through the official tray that sifted his
requests for aid. There was nobody on the lower levels
of the Ministry at home with authority to allow an
expenditure of six hundred francs, and nobody with
courage enough to worry a senior officer with such a
paltry demand. Now whenever he used the charts he
felt irritated by his own bad drawings. He ,ran his
fingers over a patient’s back and detected a new
thickening of the skin below the left shouldbr-blade.
He drew the shading on his chart and called “Next.”
Perhaps he might have forestalled that patch if the
new hospital had been finished and the new apparatus
installed for taking the temperature of the skin. ‘It is
not a case of what I htffe done,’ he thought, ‘but
what I am going to do.’ This optimistic phrase had an
ironic meaning for Doctor Cohn.

When he first came to this country, there was an old
Greek shopkeeper living in Luc - a man in his lat**
seventies who was famous for his reticence. A few years
before he had married a young African woman who
could neither read nor write. People wondered what

128

kind of contact they could have, at his age, with his
reticence and her ignorance. One day he saw his
African clerk bedding her down at the back of the
warehouse behind some sacks of coffee. He said
nothing at all, but next day he went to the bank and
took out his savings. Most of the savings he put in an
envelope>and posted in at the door of the local orphan-
age which wa# always chock-a-block with unwanted
hal&castes. The rest he took with him up the hill
behind the courthouse to a garage which sold ancient
cys, and there he bought the cheapest car they could
sell him. It was so old and so cheap that even the
manager, perhaps because he too was a Greek, had
scruples. The car could only be trusted to start on
top of a hill, Lut the old man said that didn’t matter.
It was his ambition to drive a car once before he died -
his whim if you liked to call it that. So they showed
him how to put it into gear and how to accelerate, and
shoving behind they gave him a good running start.
He rode down to the square in Luc where hi^store was
situated and began hooting as soon as he got there.
People s’topped to look at the strange sight of the old
man driving his first car, and as he passed the store his
clerk came out to see the fun. The old man drove all
round|the square a second time - he couldn’t have
stopped the car anyway because it would not start on
the flat. Round he came \vith his clerk waving in the
doorway to encourage him, then he twisted the wheel,
trod down on the accelerator and drove straight over
his clerk into the store, where the car came to the final
Jialt of all time up against the cash register. Then he
got out of the car, and leaving it just as it was, he went
into his parlour and waited for the police to arrive.
The clerk was not dead, but both his legs were crushed

129

and the pelvis was broken and he wouldn’t be any
good for a woman ever again. Presently the Commis-
sioner of Police walked in. He was a young man and
this was his first case and the Greek was highly res-
pected in Luc. “What have you done?” he demanded
when he came into the parlour. “It is not d case of
what have I done,” the old man said, “but of what I
am going to do,” and he took a gun fi-om under the
cushion and shot himself through the head. Doctor
Colin since those days had often found comfort in the
careful sentence of the old Greek storekeeper.

He called again, “Next.” It was a day of extreme
heat and humidity and the patients were languid and
few. It had never ceased to surprise the doctor how
human beings never became acclimatised to their own
country; an African suffered from the heat like any
European, just as a Swede he once knew suffered
from the long winter night as though she had been
born in a southern land. The man who now came to
stand before the doctor would not meet his eyes.
On the chart he was given the name of Attention,
but now any attention he had was certainly else-
where.

“Trouble again like the other night?” the doctor
asked. f

The man looked over the doctor’s shoulder as if
someone he feared were approaching and said, “Yes.”
His eyes were heavy and bloodshot; he pushed his
shoulders forward on either side of his sunken chest as
though they were the comers of a book he was trying
to close.

“It will be over soon,” the doctor said. “You must
be patient.”

“I am afraid,” the man said in his own tongue.

130

“Please when night comes let them bind my hands.”

“Is it as bad as that?”

“Yes. I am afraid for my boy. He sleeps beside me.”

The D.D.S. tablets were not a simple cure. Re-
actions from the drug were sometimes terrible. When
it was only a question of pain in the nerves you could
treat a patient with cortisone, but in a few cases a
kind of madnnss came over the mind in the hours of
darkness. The man said, “I am afraid of killing my
boy.”

The doctor said, “This will pass. One more night,
that’s all. Remember you have just to hold on. Gan
you read the time?”

“Yes.”

“I will give you a clock that shines so that you can
read it in the dark. The trouble will start at eight
o’clock. At eleven o’clock you will feel worse. Don’t
struggle. If we tie your hands you will struggle. Just
look at the clock. At one you will feel very bad, but
then i^wiJJ begin to pass. At three you wjll feel no
worse than you do now, and after that less and less -
the madness will go. Just look at the clock and remem-
ber whatil say. Will you do that ?”

“Yes.”

“Before dark I will bring you the clock.”

“My child ...”

“Don’t worry about your child. I will tell the
sisters to look after him till the madness has gone. You
must just watch the clock. As the hands move the mad-
ness will move too. And at live the clock will ring a
Jbeil. You can sleep then. Your madness will have
gone. It won’t come back.”

He tried to speak wfith conviction, but he felt the
heat blurring his intonation. When the man had gone

131

he felt that something had been dragged out of him
and thrown away. He said to the dispenser, “I can’t
see anyone today.”

“There are only six more.”

“Am I the only one who must not feel the heat?”
But he felt sotne of the shame of a deserter as he
walked away from his tiny segment oi the world’s
battlefield.

Perhaps it was shame that led his steps towards
another patient. As he passed Querry’s room he saw
him busied at his drawing-board; he went on and
came to Father Thomas’s room. Father Thomas too
had taken the morning off - his schools like the dis-
pensary would have been all but emptied by the heat.
Parkinson sat on the only chair, wearing the bottom
of his pyjamas: the cord looked as if it were tied in-
securely round an egg. Father Thomas was talking
excitedly, as Colin entered, in what even the doctor
recognised to be very odd English. He heard the name
“Querry^’ There was hardly space to stand between
the two beds.

“Well,” Colin said, “you see, M. Parkinson, you
are not dead. One doesn’t die of a small fevec.”

“What’s he saying?” Parkinson asked Father
Thomas. “I’m tired of not understanding. Wh^it was
the good of the Norman Conquest if wc don’t speak the
same language now ?”

“Why has he come here, Father Thomas? Have
you found that oyt ?”

“He is asking me a great many questions about
Querry.”

“Why? What business is it of his?”

“He told me that he had iome here specially to
talk to him.”

132

“Then he would have done better to have gone
back with the boat because Querry won’t talk.”

“Querry, that’s right, Querry,” Parkinson said.
“It’s stupid of him to pretend to hide away. No one
really wants to hide from Montagu Parkinson. Aren’t
1 the end of every man’s desire ? Quote. Swinburne.”

“What«have you told him, father ?”

Father Thomas said defensively, “I’ve done no
mor§ than confirm what Rycker told him.”

“Rycker! Then he’s been listening to apackoflies.”

“Is the story of Deo Gratias a lie ? Is the new hos-
pital a lie ? I hope that I have been able to put the
story in the right context, that’s all.”

“What is the right context?”

“The CathoUr context,” Father Thomas replied.

The Remington portable had been set up on
Father Thomas’s table beside the crucifix. On the
other side of the crucifix, like the second thief, the
Rolleifiex hung by it. strap from a nail. Dr. Colin
looked £t the typewritten sheet upon the t^ble. He
could read English more easily than he could speak it.
He read the heading: ‘The Recluse of the Great
River,’ then looked accusingly at Father Thomas.
“Do you know what this is about ?”

“It if the story of Querry,” Father Thomas said.

“This nonsense !”

Colin looked again at the typewritten sheet. ‘That
is the name which the natives have given to a strange
newcomer in the heart of darkest Africa.’ Colin said,
“Qui Stes-vous ?”

“Parkinson,” the man said. “I’ve told you already.
Montagu Parkinson.” He added with disappoint-
ment, “Doesn’t the name mean anything at all to
you?’

133

Lower down the page Colin read, ‘three weeks by
boat to reach this wild territory. Struck down after
seven days by the bites of tsetse flies and mosquitoes I
was carried ashore unconcious. Where once Stanley
batded his way with Maxim guns, another fight is
being waged - this time in the cause of the African -
against the deadly infection of leprosy • . . woke
from my fever to find myself a patient in a leper
hospital . . . *

“But these are lies,” Colin said to Father Thomas.

“What’s he grousing about?” Parkinson asked.,

“He says that what you have written there is - not
altogether true.”

“Tell him it’s more than the truth,” Parkinson
said. “It’s a page of modern history. Do you really
believe Caesar said 'Et tu. Brute ’ ? It’s what he ought to
have said and someone on the spot - old Herodotus,
no, he was the Greek, wasn’t he, it must have been
someone else, Suetonius perhaps, spotted what was
needed. .The truth is always forgotten. Pitt on his
deathbed asked for Bellamy’s Pork Pies, but history
altered that.” Even Father Thomas could nbt follow
the convolutions of Parkinson’s thoughts. “My articles
have to be remembered like history. At least from one
Sunday to another. Next Sunday’s instalmen(t, ‘The
Saint with a Past’.”

“Do you understand a word of all this, father?”
Colin asked.

“Not very mych,” Father Thomas admitted.

“Has he come here to make trouble ?”

“No. no. Nothing like that. Apparently his paper
sent him to Africa to write about some disturbances in
British territory. He arrived too late, but by that time
we had our own trouble in the capital, so he came on.”

134

“Not even knowing French?”

“He had a first-class return ticket to Nairobi. He
told me that his paper could not afford two star
writers in Africa, so they cabled him to move on into
our territory. He was too late again, but then he
heard some rumours of Querry. He said that he had
to bring (omething back. When he got to Luc he hap-
pened at the Governor's to meet Rycker.”

“^(Vhat does he know of Querry’s past? Even
we ... ”

JParkinson was watching the discussion closely; his
eyes travelled from one face to another. Here and
there a word must have meant something to him and
he drew his rapid, agile, erroneous conclusions.

“It appears,” Father Thomas said, “that the
British newspapers have what they call a morgue. He
has only to cable them and they will send him a precis
of all that has ever been published about Querry.”

“It’s like a police persecution.”

“Oh* I’m convinced they’ll find nothing to his dis-
credit.”

“Have neither of you,” Parkinson asked sorrow-
fully, “heard my name Montagu Parkinson? Surely
it’s memorable enough.” It was impossible to tell
whether he was laughing at himself.

Father Thomas began to answer him. “To be quite
truthful until you came ...”

“My name is writ in water. Quote. Shelley,” Par-
kinson said.

“Does Querry know what it’s all about?” Colin
asked Father Thomas.

“Not yet.”

“He was beginning ?o be happy here.”

“You mustn’t be hasty,” Father Thomas said.

135

“There is another side to all of this. Our leproserie may
become famous - as famous as Schweitzer’s hospital,
and the British, one has heard, are a generous people.”

Perhaps the name Schweitzer enabled Parkinson to
catch at Father Thomas’s meaning. He brought
quickly out, “My articles are syndicated in the United
States, France, Germany, Japan and South# America.
No other living journalist ...”

“We have managed without publicity until ram,
father,” Colin said.

“Publicity is only another name for propaganda.
And we have a college for that in Rome.”

“Perhaps it is more fitted for Rome, father, than
Central Africa.”

“Publicity can be an acid test for virtue. Personally
I am convinced that Querry ...”

“I have never enjoyed blood-sports, father. And a
man-hunt least of all.”

“You exaggerate, doctor. A great deal of good can
come froju all of this. You know how you hava always
lacked money. The mission can’t provide it. The State
will not. Your patients deserve to be considered.”

“Perhaps Querry is also a patient,” Colineaid.

“That’s nonsense. I was thinking of the lepers - you
have always dreamt of a school for rehabilitation,
haven’t you, if you could get the funds. For those poor
bumt-out cases of yours.”

“Querry may be also a bumt-out case,” the doctor
said. He looked at the fat man in the chair. “Where
now will he be able to find his therapy? Limelight is
not very good for the mutilated.”

The heat of the day and the anger they moment-
arily felt for each other made them careless, and it was
only Parkinson who saw that the man they were dis-

136

cussing was already over the threshold of Father
Thomas’s room.

“How are you, Querry?” Parkinson said. “I didn’t
recognise you when I met you on the boat.’’

Querry said, “Nor I you.’’

“Thamk God,” Parkinson said, “you aren’t finished
like the riots were. I've caught up with one story ayy-
way. We’ve gdt to have a talk, you and I.”

2

“5o that’s the new hospital,” Parkinson said. “Of
course I don’t know about these things, but there
seems to me nothing very original . . . ” He bent over
the plans and said with the obvious intention of pro-
voking, “It reminds me of something in one of our new
satellite towns. Hemel Hempstead perhaps. Or
Stevenage.”

“This is not architecture,” Querry said. “It’s a
cheap building job. Nothing more. The cheaper the
better, so long as it stands up to heat, rain and
humidify.”

“Do they require a man like you for that?”

“Yes. They have no builder here.”

“Arte you going to stay till it’s finished ?”

“Longer than that.”

“Then what Rycker told me must be partly true.”

“I doubt if anything that man says could ever be
true.”

“You’d need to be a kind of a saint, wouldn’t you,
•to bury yourself here.”

“No. Not a saint.”

“Then what are you? What are your motives? I
know a lot about you already. I’ve briefed myself,”

137

Parkinson said. He sat his great weight down on the
bed and said confidingly, “You aren’t exactly a man
who loves his fellows, are you ? Leaving out women, of
course.” There is a strong allurement in corruption
and there was no doubt of Parkinson’s ; he carried it on
the surface oPhis skin like phosphorus, impossible to
mistake. Virtue had died long ago within that moun-
tain of flesh for lack of air. A priest* might not be
shocked by human failings, but he could be hurt or
disappointed; Parkinson would welcome them.
Nothing would ever hurt Parkinson save failure fit
disappoint him but the size of a cheque.

“You heard what the doctor called me just now -
one of the burnt-out cases. They are the lepers who
lose everything that can be eaten away before they are
cured.”

“You are a whole man as far as one can see,” said
Parkinson, looking at the fingers resting on the
drawing-board.

“I’ve oome to an end. This place, you might say,
is the end. Neither the road nor the river go any
further. You have been washed up here too? haven’t
you ?”

“Oh, no, I came with a purpose.”

“I was afraid of you on the boat, but I’m at 'aid of
you no longer.”

“I can’t understand what you had to fear. I’m a
man like other men.”

“No,” Querry said, “you are a man like me. Men
with vocations are different from the others. They
have more to lose. Behind all of us in various ways lies,
a spoilt priest. You once had a vocation, admit it, if it
was only a vocation to write.’’

“That’s not important. Most journalists begin that

138

way.” The bed bent below Parkinson’s weight as he
shilled his buttocks like sacks.

“And end your way ?”

“What are you driving at ? Are you trying to insult
me ? I’m beyond insult, Mr. Querry.”

“Why* should I insult you ? We are two of a kind. I
began as^in architect and I am ending as a builder.
There’s little pleasure in that kind of progress. Is
the^e pleasure in your final stage, Parkinson?” He
looked at the typewritten sheet that he had picked up
in Father Thomas’s room and carried in with him.

*Tt’s a job.”

“Of course.”

“It keeps me alive,” Parkinson said.

“Yes.”

“It’s no use saying I’m like you. At least I enjoy
life.”

“Oh yes. The pleasures of the senses. Food, Par-
kinson ?”

“I have to be careful.” He took the dangling comer
of the mosquito-net to mop his forehead with. “I
weigh eighteen stone.”

“Women, Parkinson?”

“I don’t know why you are asking me these ques-
tions. i came to interviewed/. Of course I screw a bit
now and then, but there comes a time in every man’s
life ... ”

“You’re younger than I am.”

“My heart’s not all that strong.”

“You really have come to an end like me, haven’t
•you, Parkinson, so here we find ourselves together.
Two bumt-out cases. There must be many more of us
in’ the world. We should have a masonic sign to
recognise each other.”

139

“I’m not burnt-out. I have my work. The biggest
syndication ...” He seemed determined to prove
that he was dissimilar to Querry. Like a man present-
ing his skin to a doctor he wanted to prove that there
was no thickening, no trace of a nodule, nothing that
might class him with the other lepers.

“There was a time,” Querry said, “when ypu would
not have written that sentence about Stanley.”

“It’s a small mistake in geography, that’s all. One
has to dramatise. It’s the first thing they teach a
reporter on the Post - he has to make every story
stand up. Anyway no one will notice.”

“Would you write the real truth about me ?”

“There are laws of libel.”

“I would never bring an action. I promise you
that.” He read the advance announcement aloud.
“The Past of a Saint. What a saint !”

“How do you know that Rycker’s not right about
you? We none of us really know ourselves.”

“We hjive to if we are to be cured. When w£ reach
the furthest point, there’s no mistaking it. When the
fingers are gone and the toes too and the smear-
reactions are all negative, we can do no mare harm.
Would you write the truth, Parkinson, even if I told it
to you? I know you wouldn’t. You aren’t buyit-out
after all. You are still infectious.”

Parkinson looked at Querry with bruised eyes. He
was like a man who has reached the limit of the
third degree, when there is nothing else to do but
admit everything. “They would sack me if I tried,” he
said. “It’s easy enough to take risks when you are.
young. To think I am further off from heaven etc. etc.
Quote. Edgar Allan Poe.”

“It wasn’t Poe.”

140

“Nobody notices things like that.”

“What is the past you have given me?”

“Well, there was the case of Anne Morel, wasn’t
there? It even reached the English papers. After all
you had an English mother. And you had just com-
pleted that modem church in Bruges.”

“It wasp’t Bruges. What story did they tell about
that?”

“T^at she killed herself for love of you. At eighteen.
For a man of forty.”

“It was more than fifteen years ago. Do papers
have so long a memory?”

“No. But the morgue serves us instead. I shall des-
cribe in my best Sunday-paper style how you came
here in expiation ...”

“Papeis like yours invariably make small mistakes.
The woman’s name was Marie and not Anne. She was
twenty-five and not eighteen. Nor did she kill herself
for love of me. She wanted to escape me. That was all.
So you see I am expiating nothing.”

“She wanted to escape the man she loved?”

“Exactly that. It must be a terrible thing for a
woman to make love nightly with an efficient instru-
ment. I never failed her. She tried to leave me several
times, atid each time I got her to come back. You see
it hurt my vanity to be left by a woman. I always
wanted to do the leaving.”

“How did you bring her back?”

“Those of us who practise one art are usually adept
at another. A painter writes. A poet makes a tune. I
happened in those days to be a good actor for an
amateur. Once I used tears. Another time an over-
dose of nembutal, but not, of course, a dangerous dose.
Then I made love to a second woman to show her

what she was going to miss if she left me. I even per-
suaded her that I couldn’t do my work without her. I
made her think that I would leave the Church if I
hadn’t her support to my faith - she was a good
Catholic, even in bed. In my heart of course I had
left the Chunch years before, but she neve** realised
that. I believed a little of course, like so njany do, at
the major feasts, Christmas and Easuer, when mem-
ories of childhood stir us to a kind of devotion. She
always mistook it for the love of God.”

“All the same there must be some reason that you
came out here, among the lepers ...” '

“Not in expiation, Mr. Parkinson. There were
plenty of women after Marie Morel as there had been
women before her. Perhaps for ten more years I
managed to believe in tny own emotion - ‘my dearest
love’, 'Unite d to t ’ and all the rest. One always tries not to
repeat the same phrases, just as one tries to preserve
some special position in the act of sex, but there are
only thjrty-two positions according to Arejine and
there are less than that number of endearing words,
and in the end most women reach their climax most
easily in the commonest position of all and with the
commonest phrase upon the tongue. It was only a
question of time before I realised that I didn’t love at
all. I’ve never really loved. I’d only accepted love.
And then the worst boredom settled in. Because if I
had deceived myself with women I had deceived my-
self with work too.”

“No one ha^ ever questioned your reputation.”

“The future will. Somewhere in a back street of
Brussels now there’s a boy at a drawing-board who
will show me up. I wish I could see the cathedral he
will build . . . No, I don’t. Or I wouldn’t be here.

142

He’ll be no spoilt priest. He’ll pass the novice-master.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Querry.
Sometimes you talk like Rycker.”

“Do I ? Perhaps he has the Masonic sign too ...”

“If you are so bored, why not be bored in comfort ?
A little apartment in Brussels or a villa in Capri.
After all, you are a rich man, Querry.” ,

“Boredom is Worse in comfort. I thought perhaps
out h*re there would be enough pain and enough fear
to distract .... ” He looked at Parkinson. “Surely
you £an understand me if anyone can.”

“I can’t understand a word.”

“Am I such a monster that even you ... ?”

“What about your work, Querry ? Whatever you
say, you car’t be bored with that. You’ve been a
raging success.”

“You mean money? Haven’t I told you that the
work wasn’t good enough? What were any of my
churches compared with the cathedral at Chartres?
They were all signed with my name of couwe - no-
body could mistake a Querry for a Corbusier, but
which one of us knows the architect of Chartres? He
didn’t cari. He worked with love not vanity - and
with belief too, I suppose. To build a church when
you doA’t believe in a god seems a little indecent,
doesn’t it? When I discovered I was doing that, I
accepted a commission for a city hall, but I didn’t
believe in politics either. You never saw such an
absurd box of concrete and glass as I ( landed on the
poor city square. You see I discovered what seemed
«nly to be a loose thread in my jacket - 1 pulled it and
all the jacket began to upwind. Perhaps it’s true that
you can’t believe in a god without loving a human
being or love a human being without believing in a

143

god. They use the phrase ‘make love,’ don’t they?
But which of us are creative enough to ‘make* love?
We can only be loved - if we are lucky.”

“Why are you telling me this, Mr. Querry - even if
it’s true?”

“Because at least you are someone who won’t mind
$ie truth, though I doubt whether you’ll* ever write
it. Perhaps - who knows? - I might persuade you
to drop altogether this absurd pious nonsense that
Rycker talks about me. I am no Schweitzer. My God,
he almost tempts me to seduce his wife. That at Jeast
might change his tune.”

“Could you?”

“It’s an awful thing when experience and not
vanity makes one say yes.”

Parkinson made an oddly humble gesture. He said,
“Let me have men about me that are fat. Quote.
Shakespeare. I got that one right anyway. As for me I
wouldn’t even know how to begin.”

“Begin with readers of the Post. You are famous
among your readers and fame is a potent aphrodisiac.
Married women are the easiest, Parkinson. The young
girl too often* has her weather-eye open cfti security,
but a married woman has already found it. The hus-
band at the office, the children in the nursery 1 , a con-
dom in the bag. Say that she’s been married at
twenty, she’s ready for a limited excursion before
she’s reached thirty. If her husband is young too,
don’t be afraid; she may have had enough of youth.
With a man of my age and yours she needn’t expect
jealous scenes.”

“What you are talking about doesn’t have much to
do with love, does it ? You said you’d been loved. You
complained of it if I remember right. But I probably

144

don’t. As you realise well enough, I’m only a bloody
journalist.”

“Love comes quickly enough with gratitude, only
too quickly. The loveliest of women feels gratitude,
even to an ageing man like me, if she learns to feel
pleasure again. Ten years in the same bed withers the
little bud, Jjut now it blooms once more. Her husbanjl
notices the way 'she looks. Her children cease to be a
burden. She takes an interest again in housekeeping
as she used to in the old days. She confides a little in
her intimate friends, because to be the mistress of a
famous man increases her self-respect. The adventure
is over. Romance has begun.”

“What a cold-blooded bastard you are,” Parkinson
said with deep respect, as though he were talking of
the Post’s proprietor.

“Why not write that instead of this pious nonsense
you are planning?”

“I couldn’t. My newspaper is for family reading.
Although of course that word the Past has a certain
meaning. But it means abandoned follies, doesn’t it?
not abandoned virtues. We’ll touch on Mile. Morel -
delicately Mnd there was somebody else, wasn’t there,
called Grison?”

QueiVy didn’t answer.

“It’s no use denying things now,” Parkinson said.
“Grison is mummified in the morgue too.”

“Yes, I do remember him. I don’t care to because I
don’t like farce. He was a senior employee in the Post
Office. He challenged me to a duel aftfer I had left his
jvife. One of those bogus modern duels where nobody
fires straight. I was tempted to break the conventions
and to wing him, but his wife would have mistaken it
for passion. Poor man, he was quite content so long

145

as we were together, but when I left her he had to
suffer such scenes with her in public . . . She had
much less mercy on him than I had.”

“It’s odd that you admit all this to me,” Parkinson
said. “People are more cautious with me as a rule.
Except that I*remember once there was a murderer -
tye talked as much as you.”

“Perhaps it’s the mark of a murderer, loquacity.”

“They didn’t hang this chap and I pretended to
be his brother and visited him twice a month. All
the same I’m puzzled by your attitude. You didn’t
strike me when I saw you first as exaedy a talking
man.”

“I have been waiting for you, Parkinson, or some-
one like you. Not that f didn’t fear you too.”

“Yes, but why?”

“You are my looking-glass. I can talk to a looking-
glass, but one can be a litde afraid of one too. It
returns such a straight image. If I talked to Father
Thomas>as I’ve talked to you, he’d twist my words.”

“I’m grateful for your good opinion.”

“A good opinion ? I dislike you as much 3s I dislike
myself. I was nearly happy when you arrived, Parkin-
son, and I’ve only talked to you now so that you’ll
have no excuse to stay. The interview is oler, and
you’ve never had a better one. You don’t want my
opinion, do you, on Gropius? Your public hasn’t
heard of Gropius.”

“All the same I jotted down some questions,” Par-
kinson said. “We might get on to those now that we’ve
cleared the way.”

“I said the interview was pver.”

Parkinson leaned forward on the bed and then
swayed back like a Chinese wobbling toy made in the

146

likeness of the fat God of Prosperity. He said, “Do you
consider that the love of God or the love of humanity
is your principal driving force, M. Querry? What in
your opinion is the future of Christianity? Has the
Sermon on the Mount influenced your decision to
give youa life to the lepers ? Who is your favourite
saint? Do^ou believe in the efficacy of prayer?” He
began to laugh, *the great belly rolling like a dolphin.
“Do piracies still occur? Have you yet visited
Fatima?”

He got off the bed. “We can forget the rest of the
crap. 'In his bare cell in the heart of the dark continent
one of the greatest of modem architects and one of the
most famous Catholics of his day bared his conscience
to the correspondent of the Post. Montagu Parkinson,
who was on the spot last month in South Korea, is on
the spot again. He will reveal to our readers in his
next instalment how remorse for the past is Querry’s
driving force. Like many a recognised saint Querry is
atoning for a reckless youth by serving others. Saint
Francis was the gayest spark in all the gay old city of
Firenze -‘Florence to you and me’.”

Parkinstm went out into the hard glare of the Congo
day, but he hadn’t said enough. He returned and put
his facekdose up against the net and blew his words
through it in a fine spray. “ ‘Next Sunday’s instal-
ment: A girl dies for love.’ I don’t like you any more
than you like me, Querry, but I’m going to build you
up. I’ll build you up so high they’ll raise a statue to
you by the river. In the worst possible taste, you
Jpiow the sort of thing, you won’t be able to avoid it
because you’ll be deadband buried - you on your
knees surrounded by your bloody lepers teaching
them to pray to the god you don’t beheve in and the

147

birds shitting on your hair. I don’t mind you being a
religious fake, Querry, but I’ll show you that you
can’t use me to ease your bleeding conscience. I
wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t pilgrims at your
shrine in twenty years, and that’s how history’s writ-
ten, believe ydu me. Exegi monumentum. Quote. Virgil.”
4 Querry took from his pocket the meaningless letter
with the all-inclusive phrase which fuight, of course,
be genuine. The letter had not come to him from one
of the women Parkinson had mentioned: the morgue
of the Post was not big enough to hold all possible
bodies. He read it through again in the mood ‘that
Parkinson had elicited. “Do you remember ?” She was
one of those who would never admit that when an
emotion was dead, the memory of the occasion was
dead as well. He had to take her memories on trust,
because she had always been a truthful woman. She
reminded him of a guest who claims one particular
matchbox as her own out of the debris of a broken
party. , a

He went to his bed and lay down. The pillow
gathered heat under his neck, but this ndonday he
couldn’t face the sociabilities of lunch with the
fathers. He thought: there was only one thing I could
do and that is reason enough for being herb. I can
promise you, Marie, toute d toi, all of you, never again
from boredom or vanity to involve another human
being in my lack of love. I shall do no more harm, he
thought, with the kind of happiness a leper must feel
when he is fredd at last by his seclusion from the fear
of passing on contagion to another. For years he had
not thought of Marie Morel ^ now he remembered the
first time he had heard her name spoken. It was
spoken by a young architectural student whom he had

148

been helping with his studies. They had come back
together from a day at Bruges into the neon-lighted
Brussels evening and they had passed the girl accident-
ally outside the northern station. He had envied a
little his dull undistinguished companion when he
saw her fj.ce brighten under the lamps. Has anyone
ever seen a. man smile at a woman as a woman smiles

§ 9

at the man she Joves, fortuitously, at a bus-stop, in a
railway carriage, at some chain-store in the middle of
buying groceries, a smile so naturally joyful, without
premeditation and without caution? The converse,
of cdhrse, is probably true also. A man can never smile
quite so falsely as the girl in a brothel-parlour. But the
girl in the brothel, Querry thought, is imitating some-
thing true. The man has nothing to imitate.

He soon had no cause to feel envy for his companion
of that night. Even in those early days he had known
how to alter the direction of a woman’s need to love.
Woman ? She was not even as old as the architectural
student whose name he couldn’t now remember - an
ugly name like Hoghe. Unlike Marie Morel the for-
mer student was probably still alive, building in some
suburb his* bourgeois villas - machines for living in.
Querry addressed him from the bed. “I am sorry. I
really Ufclieved that I meant you no harm. I really
thought in those days that I acted from love.” There
is a time in life when a man with a little acting
ability is able to deceive even himself.

149

Part V

Chapter One

i

It is characteristic of Africa the way that people come
and go, as though the space and emptiness of an un-
developed continent encourage drift; the high tide
deposits the flotsam on the edge of the shore and
sweeps it away again in its withdrawal, to leave else-
where. No one had expected Parkinson, he had come
unannounced, and a few days later he went again,
carrying his Rolleiflex and Remington down to the
Otraco boat bound for some spot elsewhere. Two
weeks later a motor-boat came up the river in the
late evening carrying a young administrator who
played a game of liar-dice with the fathers, drank one
glass of whisky before bed, and left behind him, as if it
had been tlje sole intention of his voyage, a copy of an
English journal, the Architectural Review , before depart-
ing witHbut so much as breakfast into the grey and
green immensity. (The review contained - apart from
the criticism of a new arterial road - some illustrations
of a hideous cathedral newly completed in a British
colony. Perhaps the young man thought that it would
serve as a warning to Querry ) . Again a few weeks went
unnoticed by - a few deaths from tuberculosis, the
Tiospital climbing a few feet higher from its founda-
tions - and then two policemen got off the Otraco
boat to make enquiries about a Salvation Army leader

153

who was wanted in the capital. He was said to have
persuaded the people of a neighbouring tribe to sell
their blankets to him because they would be too heavy
to wear at the Resurrection of the Dead and then to
give him the money back so that he might keep it for
them in a sefcure place where no thieves wpuld break
in and steal. As a recompense he had given certificates
insuring them against the danger of being kidnapped
by the Catholic and Protestant missionaries who, he
said, were exporting bodies with the help of witchcraft
wholesale to Europe in sealed railway trucks where
they were turned into canned food labelled' Best
African Tunny. The policemen could learn nothing
of the fugitive at the leproserie, and they departed
again on the same boat two hours later, floating away
with the small islands of water-jacinth at the same
speed and in the same direction, as though they were
all a part of nature too.

Querry in time began to forget Parkinson. The
great wprld had done its worst and gone, and a kind of
peace descended. Rycker stayed aloof, and no echo
from any newspaper-article out of distant Europe
came to disturb Querry. Even Father Thomas moved
away for a while from the leproserie to a seminary in
the bush from which he hoped to obtain a teacher for
yet another new class. Querry’s feet were becoming
familiar with the long laterite road that stretched
between his room and the hospital; in the evening,
when the worst heat was over, the laterite glowed,
like a night-blcoming flower, in shades of rose and red.

The fathers were unconcerned with private lives. A
husband, after he had been cured, left the leproserie
and his wife moved into the hut of another mam, but
die fathers asked no questions. One of the catechists.

154

a man who had reached the limit of mutilation, having
lost nose, fingers, toes, (he looked as though he had
been lopped, scraped and tidied by a knife) fathered
a baby with the woman, crippled by polio, who could
only crawl upon the ground dragging her dwarfed
legs behind her. The man brought the baby to the
Church fqr baptism and there it was baptise^
Emanuel - ther% were no questions and no admoni-
tions, The fathers were too busy to bother themselves
with what the Church considered sin (moral theology
was the subject they were least concerned with). In
Father Thomas some thwarted instinct might be seen
deviously at work, but Father Thomas was no longer
there to trouble the leproserie with his scruples and
anxieties.

The doctor was a less easy character to understand.
Unlike the fathers he had no belief in a god to support
him in his hard vocation. Once when Querry made a
comment on his life - a question brought to his mind
by the sight of some pitiable and squalid caseyrfhe doc-
tor looked up at him with much the same clinical eye
with which he had just examined the patient. He said,
“Perhaps If I tested your skin now I would get a
second negative reaction.”

“What do you mean ?”

“You are showing curiosity again about another
human being.”

“Who was the first?” Querry asked.

“Deo Gratias. You know I have been luckier in my
vocation than you.”

Querry looked down the long row of worn-out mat-
tresses where bandaged people lay in the awkward
postures of the bedridden. The sweet smell of sloughed
skin was in the air. “Lucky ?” he said.

155

‘It needs a very strong man to survive an intros-
pective and solitary vocation. I don’t think you were
strong enough. I know I couldn’t have stood your
life.”

“Why does a man choose a vocation like this?”
Querry askecf.

. “He’s chosen. Oh, I don’t mean by gonJ. By acci-
dent. There is an old Danish docto'r still going the
rounds who became a leprologist late in life. By acci-
dent. He was excavating an ancient cemetery and
found skeletons there without finger-bones - it was an
old leper-cemetery of the fourteenth century. He
X-rayed the skeletons and he made discoveries in the
bones, especially in the nasal area, which were quite
unknown to any of us — you see most of us haven’t the
chance to work with skeletons. He became a lepro-
logist after that. You will meet him at any inter-
national conference on leprosy carrying his skull with
him in an airline’s overnight bag. It has passed
through'a lot of douaniers’ hands. It must be rather a
shock, that skull, to them, but I believe they don’t
charge duty on it.”

“And you; Doctor Colin? What was ‘your acci-
dent?” (

“Only the accident of temperament, perhaps,” the
doctor replied evasively. They came out together
into the unfresh and humid air. “Oh, don’t mistake
me. I had no death wish as Damien had. Now that we
can cure leprosy, we shall have fewer of those voca-
tions of doom; but they weren’t uncommon once.”
They began to cross the road to the shade of the dis-.
pensary where the lepers wafaed on the steps ; the doc-
tor halted in the hot centre of the laterite. “There used
to be a high suicide-rate among leprologists - 1 suppose

156

they couldn’t wait for that positive test they all ex-
pected some time. Bizarre suicides for a bizarre
vocation. There was one man I knew quite well who
injected himself with a dose of snake-venom, and an-
other who poured petrol over his furniture and his
clothes and then set himself alight. There is a common
feature, y<?u will have noticed, in both cases - un-
necessary suffering. That can be a vocation too.”

“Won’t understand you.”

“Wouldn’t you rather suffer than feel discomfort?
Discomfort irritates our ego like a mosquito-bite. We
become aware of ourselves, the more uncomfortable
we are, but suffering is quite a different matter.
Sometimes I think that the search for suffering and the
remembrance c f suffering are the only means we have
to put ourselves in touch with the whole human con-
dition. With suffering we become part of the Christian
myth.”

“Then I wish you’d teach me how to suffer,”
Querry said. “I only know the mosquito-bites.”

“You’ll suffer enough if we stand here any longer,”
Dr. Colirl said and he drew Querry off the laterite
into the shhde. “Today I am going to show you a few
interesting eye-cases.” He sat at his surgery-table and
Querry took the chair beside him. Only on the linen
masks that children wear at Christmas had he seen
such scarlet eyes, representing avarice or senility, as
now confronted them. “You only need a little
patience,” Dr. Colin said.» “Suffering is not so hard
to find,” and Querry tried to remember who it was
that had said much the same to him months ago. He
was irritated by his own failure of memory.

“Aren’t you being glib about suffering?” he asked.
“That woman who died last week ...”

157

“Don’t be too sorry for those who die after some
pain. It makes them ready to go. Think of how a
death sentence must sound when you are full of
health and vigour.” Dr. Colin turned away from him
to speak in her native tongue to an old woman
whose palsied eyelids never once moved tochade the
eyes.

That night, after taking dinner with the fathers,
Querry strolled over to the doctor’s house. The lepers
were sitting outside their huts to make the most of the
cool air which came with darkness. At a little stall, lit
by a hurricane-lamp, a man was offering for five
francs a handful of caterpillars he had gathered in the
forest. Somebody was singing a street or two away,
and by a fire Querry came upon a group of dancers
gathered round his boy Deo Gratias, who squatted on
the ground and used his fists like drum-sticks to beat
the rhythm on an old petrol-tin. Even the bat-eared
dogs lay quiet as though carved on tombs. A young
woman with bare breasts kept a rendezvous? where a
path led away into the forest. In the moonlight the
nodules on her face ceased for a while to fcxist, and
there were no patches on her skin. She washny young
girl waiting for a man. ,

To Querry after his outbreak to the Englishman it
seemed that some persistent poison had been drained
from his system. He could remember no evening peace
to equal this since the night when he had given the
last touches to the first plans, perhaps the only ones,
which had corfipletely satisfied him. The owners, of
course, had spoilt the building afterwards as they
spoiled everything. No builfiing was safe from the
furniture, the pictures, the human beings that it
would presently contain. But first there had been this

158

peace. Consummatum est: pain over and peace falling
round him like a little death.

When he had drunk his second whisky he said to the
doctor, “When a smear-test is negative, does it always
stay so?”

“Not always. It’s too early to loose the patient on
the world jintil the tests have been negative - oh, f<y
six months. Thire are relapses even with our present
drugs,”

“Do they sometimes find it hard to be loosed?”

“Very often. You see they become attached to their
hut 'and their patch of land, and of course for the
burnt-out cases life outside isn’t easy. They carry the
stigma of leprosy in their mutilation. People are apt
to think once a leper, always a leper.”

“1 begin to find your vocation a little easier to
understand. All the same - the fathers believe they
have the Christian truth behind them, and it helps
them in a place like tftis. You and I have no such truth.
Is the Christian myth that you talked about enough
for you?”

“I want to be on the side of change,” the doctor
said. “If I had been born an amoeba who could think,
I would have dreamed of the day of the primates. I
would nave wanted anything I did to contribute to
that day. Evolution, as far as we can tell, has lodged
itself finally in the brains of man. The ant, the fish,
even the ape has gone as far as it can go, but in our
brain evolution is moving - my God - at what a
speed! I forget how many hundreds of millions of
years passed between the dinosaurs and the primates,
but in our own lifetime lye have seen the change from
diesel to jet, the splitting of the atom, the cure of
leprosy.”

159

“Is change so good ?”

“We can’t avoid it. We are riding a great ninth
evolutionary wave. Even the Christian myth is part
of the wave, and perhaps, who knows, it may be the
most valuable part. Suppose love were to evolve as
rapidly in our brains as technical skill ha»done. In
isolated cases it may have done, in the saints ... if
the man really existed, in Christ.”

“You can really comfort yourself with all that?”
Querry asked. “It sounds like the old song of pro-
gress.”

“The nineteenth century wasn’t as far wrong as we
like to believe. We have become cynical about pro-
gress because of the terrible things we have seen men
do during the last forty years. All the same through
trial and error the amoeba did become the ape. There
were blind starts and wrong turnings even then, I sup-
pose. Evolution today can produce Hitlers as well as
St. John of the Cross. I have a small hope, that’s all, a
very small hope, that someone they call Christ was the
fertile element, looking for a crack in the wall to plant
its seed. I think of Christ as an amoeba wh6 took the
right turning. *1 want to be on the side of the progress
which survives. I’m no friend of pterodactyls.”

“But if we are incapable of love ?”

“I’m not sure such a man exists. Love is planted in
man now, even uselessly in some cases, like an appen-
dix. Sometimes of course people call it hate.”

“I haven’t found any trace of it in myself.”

“Perhaps you are looking for something too big and
too important. Or too active.”

“What you art saying se^ms to me every bit as
superstitious as what the fathers believe.”

“Who cares ? It’s the superstition I live by. There

160

was another superstition - quite unproven - Coper-
nicus had it - that the earth went round the sun. With-
out that superstition we shouldn’t be in a position now
to shoot rockets at the moon. One has to gamble on
one’s superstitions. Like Pascal gambled on his.” He
drank his jvhisky down.

“Are yoy a happy man?” Querry asked.

“I suppose I &m. It’s not a question that I’ve ever
asked^ myself. Does a happy man ever ask it? I go on
from day to day.”

“Swimming on your wave,” Querry said with envy.
“Do\ou never need a woman ?”

“The only one I ever needed,” the doctor said, “is
dead.”

“So that’s wl y you came out here.”

“You are wrong,” Colin said. “She’s buried a hun-
dred yards away. She was my wife.”

161

Chapter Two

i

In the last three months the hospital had made great
progress. It was no longer a mere ground-plan looking
like the excavation of a Roman villa; the walls had
risen; the window-spaces were there waiting fox' wire
nets. It was even possible to estimate the time when
the roof would be fixed. The lepers worked more
rapidly as the end came in sight. Querry was walking
through the building with Father Joseph ; they passed
through non-existent doors like revenants, into rooms
that did not yet exist, into the future operating-
theatre, the X-ray room, the fire-proof room with the
vats of paraffin wax for the palsied hands, into the dis-
pensary, into the two main wards.

“What will you do,” Father Joseph said, “when
this is finished?”

“What will you, father ?”

“Of course it’s for the Superior and the doctor to
decide, but I would like to build a place where the
mutilated can learn to work - occupational therapy,
I suppose they call it at home. The sisters do what they
can with individuals, especially the mutilated. No one
wants to be a« special case. They would learn much
quicker in a class where they could joke a bit.”

“And after that?”

“There’s always more building to be done for the
next twenty years, if only lavatories.”

162

“Then there’ll always be something for me to do,
father.”

“An architect like you is wasted on the work we
have here. These are only builders’ jobs.”

“I have become a builder.”

“Don’fryou ever want to see Europe again?”

“Do yoy, father?”

“There’s a big difference between us. Europe is
much»the same as this for those of our Order - a group
of buildings, very like the ones we have here, our rooms
aren’t any different, nor the chapel (even the Stations
are the same), the same classrooms, the same food,
the same clothes, the same kind of faces. But surely to
you Europe means more than that - theatres, friends,
restaurants, ba.-t, books, shops, the company of
your equals - the lruits of fame whatever that
means.”

Querry said, “I am content here.”

It was nearly time for the midday meal, and they
walked bhek together towards the mission, passing the
nuns’ house and the doctor’s and the small shabby
cemetery.' It was not kept well - the service of the
living took* up too much of the fathers’ time. Only on
All Soi\|s night was the graveyard properly remem-
bered when a lamp or a candle shone on every grave,
pagan and Christian. About half the graves had
crosses, and they were as simple and uniform as those
of the mass dead in a war-cemetery. Querry knew now
which grave belonged to Ij^me. Colin. It stood cross-
less and a little apart, but the only reasem for the separ-
ation was to leave space for Doctor Colin to join
her.

“I hope you’ll find room for me there too,” Querry
said. “I won’t rate a cross.”

163

“We shall have trouble with Father Thomas over
that. He’ll argue that once baptized you are always a
Christian.”

“I would do well to die then before he returns.”

“Better be guick about it. He will be back sooner
than we think.” Even his brother priests were happier
without Father Thomas; it was impossible^not to feel
a grudging pity for so unattractive a man.

Father Joseph’s warning proved wise too quickly.
Absorbed in examining the new hospital they had
failed to hear the bell of the Otraco boat. Father
Thomas was already ashore with the cardboantbox
in which he carried all his personal belongings. He
stood in the doorway of his room and greeted them as
they passed. He had the curious and disquieting air of
receiving them like guests.

“Well, Father Joseph, you see that I am back before
my time.”

“We do see,” Father Joseph said.

“Ah, H. Querry, I have something very important
to discuss with you.”

“Yes?”

“All in good time. Patience. Much haS*happened
while I have been away.”

“Don’t keep us on tenterhooks,” Father Joseph said.

“At lunch, at lunch,” Father Thomas replied,
carrying his cardboard-box elevated like a monstrance
into his room.

As they passed the nextrvindow they could see the
Superior standing by his bed. He was pushing a hair-
brush, a sponge-bag and a box of cheroots into his
khaki knapsack, a relic of the Jast war which he carried
with him across the world like a memory. He took the
cross from his desk and packed it away wrapped in a

164

couple of handkerchiefs. Father Joseph said, “I begin
to fear the worst.”

The Superior at lunch sat silent and preoccupied.
Father Thomas was on his right. He crumbled his
bread with the closed face of importance. Only when
the mea 1 was over did the Superior speak. He said,
“Father yhomas has brought me a letter. The Bishpp
wants me in Lhc. I may be away some weeks or even
moitfhs and I am asking Father Thomas to act for me
during my absence. You are the only one, father,” he
added, “with the time to look after the accounts.” It
waS an apology to the other fathers and a hidden
rebuke to the pride which Father Thomas was already
beginning to show - he had very little in common
with the doubting pitiful figure of a month ago.
Perhaps even a temporary promotion could cure a
failing vocation.

“You know you can trust me,” Father Thomas
said.

“I cafn trust everyone here. My work is the least
important in the place. I can’t build like Father
Joseph or look after the dynamos like Brother
Philippe.*’

“I |vill try not to let the school suffer,” Father
Thomas said.

“I am sure you will succeed, father. You will find
that my work will take up very little of your time. A
superior is always replaceable.”

The more bare a life i|, the more we fear change.
The Superior said grace and looked around for his
cheroots, but he had already packed them. He accep-
ted a cigarette from Qperry, but he wore it as awk-
wardly as he would have worn a suit of lay clothes.
The fathers stood unhappily around unused to depar-

165

tures. Querry felt like a stranger present at some
domestic grief.

“The hospital will be finished, perhaps, before I
return,*' the Superior said with a certain sadness.

“We will not put up the roof-tree till you are
back,” Father Joseph replied.

,“No, no, you must promise me to delay, nothing.
Father Thomas, those are my last instructions. The
roof-tree at the earliest moment and plenty of cham-
pagne - if you can find a donor - to celebrate.”

For years in their quiet unchanging routine they
had been apt to forget that they were men under
obedience, but now, suddenly, they were reminded
of it. Who knew what was intended for the Superior,
what letters might not have passed between the
Bishop and the General in Europe? He spoke of
returning in a few weeks (the Bishop, he had ex-
plained, had summoned him for a consultation), but
all of them were aware that he might never return.
Decisions unight already have been taken elsewhere.
They watched him now unobtrusively, with affection,
as one might watch a dying man (only FathcdThomas
\vas absent: he* had already gone to move his papers
into the other’s room), and the Superior in tum/ooked
at them and the bleak refectory in which he had spent
his best years. It was true what Father Joseph had
said. The buildings, wherever he went, would always
be very much the same; the refectories would vary as
little as colonial airports, tyit for that very reason a
man became more accustomed to the minute diff-
erences. There would always be the same coloured
reproduction of the Pope’s portrait, but this one had a
stain in the comer where the leper who made the
frame had spilt the walnut colouring. The chairs too

166

had been fashioned by lepers, who, had taken as a
model the xegulation kind supplied to the junior grade
of government-officials, a kind you would find in every
mission, but one of the chairs had become unique by
its unreliability; they had always kept it against the
wall since a visiting priest, Father Henri, had tried to
imitate a circus-trick by balancing on the back. Even
the bookcase had an individual weakness: one shelf
slanged at an angle, and there were stains upon the
wall that reminded each man of something. The
stains on a different wall would evoke different pic-
tures. Wherever one went one’s companions would
have much the same names (there are not so many
saints in common use to choose from), but the new
Father Joseph would not be quite the same as the old.

From the river canie the summons of the ship’s bell.
The Superior took the cigarette out of his mouth and
looked at it as though he wondered how it had come
there. Father Joseph said, “I think we should have a
glass ofiwine ...” He rummaged in the.cupboard
for a botde and found one which had been two-thirds
finished some weeks ago on the last major feast-day.
However there was a thimbleful left for all. “Bon
voyage^ father.” The ship’s bell rang again. Father
Thomas came to the door and said, “I think you
should be off now, father.”

“Yes. I must fetch my knapsack.”

“I have it here,” Father Thomas said.

“Well then ...” The Superior gave one more
furtive look at the room: the staiped picture, the
broken chair, the slanting shelf.

“A safe return,” Father Paul said. “I will fetch
Doctor Colin.”

“No, no, this is his time for a siesta. M. Qucrry will
167

explain to him how it is.”

They walked down to the river-bank to see the last
of him and Father Thomas carried his knapsack. By
the gang-plank the Superior took it and slung it over
his shoulder with something of a military gesture. He
touched Fathef Thomas on the arm. “I think you’ll
find the accounts in good order. Leave next month’s
as'late as you can ... in case I’m back:” He'hesitated
and said with a deprecating smile, “Be careful of your-
self, Father Thomas. Not too much enthusiasm.”
Then the ship and the river took him away from them.

Father Joseph and Querry returned to the hcfuse
together. Querry said, “Why has he chosen Father
Thomas ? He has been here a shorter time than any of
you.”

“It is as the Superior said. We all have our proper
jobs, and to tell you the truth Father Thomas is the
only one who has the least notion of book-keeping.”

Querry lay down on his bed. At this hour of the day
the heat n^ade it impossible to work and almost as im-
possible to sleep except for brief superficial spells. He
thought he was with the Superior on the bout going
away, but in his dream the boat took the* contrary
direction to that of Luc. It went on down the narrow-
ing river into the denser forest, and it was now the
Bishop’s boat. A corpse lay in the Bishop’s cabin and
the two of them were taking it to Pendeld for burial.
It surprised him to think that he had been so misled
as to believe that the boat had reached the furthest
point of its jourqey into the'interior when it reached
the leproserie. New he was in motion again, going
deeper.

The scrape of a chair woke him. He thought it was
the ship’s bottom grinding acr oss a snag in the river.

168

He opened his eyes and saw Father Thomas sitting by
his bedside.

“I had not meant to wake you,” Father Thomas
said.

“I was only half asleep.”

“I haye brought you messages from a friend of
yours,” Father Thomas said.

“I have no friends in Africa except those I have
mad^here.”

“You have more friends than you know. My mes-
sage is from M. Rycker.”

“Rycker is no friend of mine.”

“I know he is a little impetuous, but he is a man
with a great admiration for you. He feels, from some-
thing his wife Hs said, that he was perhaps wrong to
speak of you to the English journalist.”

“His wife has more sense than he has then.”

“Luckily it has all turned out for the best,” Father
Thomas said, “and we owe it to M. Rycker.”

“The best?”

“He has written about you and all of us here in the
most splendid fashion.”

“Already ?”

“He| telegraphed his first article from Luc. M.
Rycker helped him at the post-office. He made it a
condition that he should read the article first - M.
Rycker, of coui sc, would never have allowed anything
damaging to us to pass. He has written a real appre-
ciation of your ork. It haj alicady been translated in
Paris Dimaruhe”

“That rag?”

“It reaches a very wjde public,” Father Thomas
said.

“A scandal-sheet.”

169

“All the mooe creditable then that your message
should appear there.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about - 1 have
no message.” He turned impatiently away from
Father Thomas’s searching and insinuating gaze and
lay facing the* wall. He heard the rustle o^ paper -
Father Thomas was drawing something from the
pocket of his soutane. He said, “Let ftie read a little
bit of it to you. I assure you that it will give you great
pleasure. The article is called: ‘An Architect of Souls.
The Hermit of the Congo’.”

“What nauseating rubbish. I tell you, father,
nothing that man could write would interest me.”

“You are really much too harsh. I am only sorry I
had no time to show it to the Superior. He makes a
slight mistake about the name of the Order, but you
can hardly expect anything different from an English*
man. Listen to the way he ends. ‘When a famous
French statesman once retired into the depths of the
country, to avoid the burden of office, it was said that
the world made a path to his door’.”

“He can get nothing right,” Querry said. ‘'Nothing.
It was an author, not a statesman. And the author was
American, not French.” t

“These are trifles,’ ’ F ather Thomas said rebukingly .
“Listen to this. ‘The whole Catholic world has been
discussing the mysterious disappearance of the great
architect Querry. Querry whose range of achievement
extended from the latest .cathedral in the United
States, a palacp of glass and steel, to a little white
Dominican chape 1 on the Cote d’Azur ... ’ ”

“Now he’s confusing nie with that amateur,
Matisse,” Querry said.

“Never mind small details.”

“I hope for your sake that the gaspels are more
accurate in small details than M. Parkinson.”

“ ‘Querry has not been seen for a long while in his
usual haunts. 1 have tracked him all the way from his
favourite restaurant, the l’Epaule de Mouton . . . * ”

“This is absurd. Does he think I’m a gourmandising
tourist ?”

“ ‘To the heart of Africa. Near the spot where Stan-
ley o«ce pitched his camp among the savage tribes, I
at last came on Querry . . . * ” Father Thomas looked
up. He said, “It is here that he writes a great many
gracious things about our work. ‘Selfless . . . devoted
. . . in the white robes of their blameless lives.’
Really, you know, he does have a certain sense of
style.

“ ‘What is it that lias induced the great Querry to
abandon a career that brought him honour and
riches to give up his life to serving the world’s un-
touchables ? I was in no position to ask him that when
suddenly I found that my quest had ended. Uncon-
scious and burning with fever, I was carried on shore
from my pirogue, the frail bark in which I had pene-
trated whit Joseph Conrad called the Heart of Dark-
ness, bf a few faithful natives who had followed me
down the great river with the s^me fidelity their
grandfathers had shown to Stanley’.”

“He can’t keep Stanley out of it,” Querry said.
“There have been many others in Central Africa, but I
suppose the English would ziever have heard of them.”

“ ‘I woke to find Querry’s hand upon my pulse and
Querry’s eyes gazing into mine. Then I sensed the
great mystery’.” ,

“Do you really enjoy this stuff?” Querry asked. He
sat up impatiently on his bed.

“I have read many lives of saints that were far
worse written,” Father Thomas said. “Style is not
everything. The man’s intentions are sound. Perhaps
you are not the best judge. He goes on, ’It was from
Querry’s lips that I learned the meaning of the mys-
tery. Though Querry spoke to me as perhaps he had
never spoken to another human soul, with a burning
remorse for a past as colourful and cavalier as that St.
Francis once led in the dark alleys of the city by the
Amo . . . ’ I wish I had been there.” Father Thomas
said wistfully, “when you spoke of that. I’m leaving
out the next bit which deals mainly with the lepers.
He seems to have noticed only the mutilated - a pity
since it gives a rather too sombre impression of our
home here.” Father Thomas, as the acting Superior,
was already taking a more favourable view of the mis-
sion than he had a month before.

“Here is where he reaches what he calls the heart
of the matter. ‘It was from Querry’s most intimate
friend, A«dr£ Rycker, the manager of a paint-oil plan-
tation, that I learned the secret. It is perhaps typical
of Querry that what he keeps humbly hiddeil from the
priests for whom he works he is ready to 'disclose to
this planter - the last person you would expect to find
on terms of close friendship with the great architect.
“You want to know what makes him tick?” M.
Rycker said to me. “I am sure that it is love, a com-
pletely selfless love without the barrier of colour or
class. I have never known a man more deeply in-
structed in faith. I have sat at this very table late into
the night discussing the nature of divine love with the
great Querry.” So the two strange halves of Querry
meet - to me Querry had spoken of the women he had
loved in the world of Europe, and to his obscure

friend, in his factory in the bush, he had spoken of his
love of God. The world in this atomic day has need of
saints. When a famous French statesman once retired
into the depths of the country, to avoid the burden of
office, it was said that the world made a path to his
door. It is unlikely that the world which discovered
the way to Schweitzer at Lambarene will fail to sc ek
out the hermit of the Congo.’ I think he might have
left out the reference to St. Francis,” Father Thomas
said, “it might be misunderstood.”

“What lies the man does tell,” Querry exclaimed.
He got up from his bed and stood near his drawing-
board and the stretched sheet of blueprint. He said,
“I won’t allow that man ...”

“He is a jouiualist, of course,” Father Thomas said.
“These are just professional exaggerations.”

“I don’t mean Parkinson. It’s his job. I mean
Rycker. I have never spoken to Rycker about Love or
God.”

“He fold me that he once had an interesting dis-
cussion with you.”

“Never. There was no discussion. All the talking, I
assure yofi, was done by him.”

FatWcr Thomas looked down at the newspaper cut-
ting. He said, “There’s to be a second article, it ap-
pears, in a week’s time. It says here, ‘Next Sunday. A
Saint’s Past. Redemption by Suffering. The Leper
Lost in the Jungle.’ That will be Deo Gratias 1
imagine,” Father Thomas said. “There’s also a
photograph of the Englishman talking to Rycker.”

“Give it to me.” Querry tore the paper into pieces
and dropped them on the floor. He said, “Is the road
open ?”

“It was when I left Luc. Why ?”

>73

"I’m going to take a truck then."

"Whereto?”

"To have a word with Rycker. Can’t you see,
father, that I must silence him ? This mustn’t go on.
I’m fighting for my life.”

“Your life ?*’

.“My life here. It’s all I have.” He sgt wearily
down on the bed. He said, "I've come a long way.
There’s nowhere else for me to go if I leave here.”

Father Thomas said, “For a good man fame is
always a problem.”

"But, father, I'm not a good man. Can’t you
believe me? Must you too twist everything like
Rycker and that man? I had no good motive in
coming here. I am looking after myself as I have
always done, but surely even a selfish man has the
right to a little happiness ?”

"You have a truly wonderful quality of humility,”
Father Thomas said.

174

Part VI

Chapter One

i

Mark Rycker stopped her reading of The Imitation of
Christ as soon as she saw that her husband was asleep,
but she was afraid to move in case she might wake
him,* and of course there was always the possibility of
a trap. She could imagine how he would reproach
her, “Could you not watch by me one hour?” for her
husband w.^ not afraid to carry imitation to great
lengths. The hollow face was turned away from her so
that she could not see his eyes. She thought that so
long as he was ill she need not tell him her news, for
one had no duty to give such unwelcome news as hers
to a sick tnan. Through the net of the window there
blew in the smell of stale margarine which she would
always associate with marriage, and from where she
sat she coifld see the corner of the engine-house, where
they wdre feeding the ovens with the husks.

She felt ashamed of her fear and boredom and
nausea. She had been bred a colon and she knew very
well that this was not how a colon ought to behave. Her
father had represented the same company as her hus-
band, in a different, a roving capacity, but because
his wife was delicate he hefc sent her home to Europe
before his child’s birth. Her mother had fought to stay
with him, for she was a true colon , and in her turn the
daughter of a colon. The word spoken in Europe so
disparagingly was a badge of honour to them. Even

177

in Europe on leave they lived in groups, went to the
same restaurants and caf<J-bars kept by former colons
and took villas for the season at the same watering-
places. Wives waited among the potted palms for
their husbands to return from the land of palms ; they
played bridge and read aloud to each other ^heir hus-
bands’ letters, which contained the gossip of the
colony. The letters bore bright postage stamps of
beasts and birds and flowers and the postmarks of
exotic places. Marie began to collect them at six, but
she always preserved the envelopes and the postmarks
as well, so that she had to keep them in a box initead
of an album. One of the postmarks was Luc. She did
not foresee that one day she would begin to know Luc
better than she knew the rue de Namur.

With the tenderness that came from a sense of guilt
she wiped Rycker’s face with a handkerchief soaked in
eau-de-cologne, even at the risk of waking him. She
knew that she was a false colon. It was like betraying
one’s country - all the worse because one’s country was
so remote and so maligned.

One of the labourers came out of the shed to make
water against the wall. When he turned b&ck he saw
her watching him and they stared across the fd v yards
at each other, but they were like people watching with
telescopes over an immense distance. She remembered
a breakfast, with the pale European sun on the water
outside and bathers going in for an early dip, and her
father teaching her the .Mongo for “bread” and
“coffee” and “iam”. Thej were still the only three
words in Mongo that she knew. But it was not enough
to say coffee and bread and, jam to the man outside.
They had no means of communication: she couldn’t
even curse him, as her father or her husband could

i

178

have done, in words that he understood* He turned and
went into the shed and again she felt the loneliness of
her treachery to this country of colons . She wanted to
apologise to her old father at home ; she couldn’t blame
him for the postmarks and the stamps. Her mother had
yearned tg remain with him. She had not realised how
fortunate fcer weakness was. Rycker opened his eyes
and said, “What time is it ?”

“I think it’s about three o’clock.”

He was asleep again before he could have heard her
reply, and she sat on. In the yard a lorry backed
towards the shed. It was piled high with nuts for the
presses and the ovens; they were like dried and
withered heads, the product of a savage massacre. She
tried to read, but the Imitation of Christ could not hold
her attention. Once a month she received a copy of
Marie-Chanlal , but she had to read the serial in secret
when Rycker was occupied, for he despised what he
called women’s fiction and spoke critically of day-
dreams. What other res mrces had she than^dreams?
They were a form of hope, but she hid them from him
like a meihber of the Resistance used to hide his pill of
cyanide. She refused to believe that this was the end,
growing old in solitude with her husband and the
smell of margarine and the black faces and the scrap-
metal, in the heat and the humidity. She awaited day
by day some radio-signal which would announce the
hour of liberation. Sometimes she thought that there
were no lengths to which^he would not go for the
sake of liberation. ,

Marie-Chantal came by surface-mail ; it was always
two months out-of-date* but that hardly mattered,
since the serial story, as much as any piece of liter-
ature, had eternal values. In the st<jry she was reading

179

now a girl in the Salle Priv6e at Monte Carlo had
placed 12,000 francs, the last money she had in the
world, upon the figure 17, but a hand had reached
over her shoulder while the ball ran and shifted her
tokens to ig.,Then the ig socket caught the ball and
she turned to see who her benefactor could he . . .but
she would have to wait another three week$ before she
discovered his identity. He was approaching her now
down the West African coast, by mail-boat, but even
when he arrived at Matadi, there was still the long
river-journey ahead of him. The dogs began barking
in the yard and Rycker woke. *

“See who it is,” he said, “but keep him away.” She
heard a car draw up. It was probably the represen-
tative of one of the two rival breweries. Each man
made the tour of the out-stations three times a year
and gave a party to the local chief and the villagers
with his brand of beer gratis for everyone. In some
mysterious way it was supposed to aid consumption.

They Were shovelling the dried heads dut of the
camion when she came into the yard. Two men sat in a
small Peugeot truck. One of them was Aincdn, but she
couldn’t see who the other was because the* sun on the
windshield dazzled her, but she heard him sayV“What
I have to do here should take no time at all. We will
reach Luc by ten.” She came to the door of the car and
saw that it was Querry. She recalled the shameful
scene weeks before when she had run to her car in
tears. Afterwards she had soent the night by the road-
side bitten by .mosquitoey rather than face another
human being who might despise her husband too.

She thought gratefully, “He has come of his own
accord. What he said was just a passing mood. It was
his cafard which sfjoke, not he.” She wanted to go in

180

and see her husband and tell him, but then she remem-
bered that he had told her, “Keep him away.”

Querry climbed out of the truck and she saw that
the boy with him was one of the mutilis from the
leproserie. She said to Querry, “You’ve come to call
on us? My husband will be so glad ...”

“I am 05 my way to Luc,*’ Querry said, “but I want
to have a word with M. Rycker first.” There was some-
thingin his expression which recalled her husband at
certain moments. If cafard had dictated that insulting
phrase the cafard still possessed him.

Silk said, “He is ill. I’m afraid you can’t see him.”

“I must. I have been three days on the road from
the leproserie ...”

“You will hav 1 to tell me.” He stood by the door of
the truck. She said, “Can’t you give me your mes-
sage?”

“I can hardly strike a woman,” Querry said. A sud-
den rictus round the mouth startled her. Perhaps he
was tryirfjj to soften the phrase with a smite, but it
made his face all the uglier.

“Is that your message?”

“More di- less,” Querry said.

“Tht'h you’d better come inside.” She walked
slowly away without looking back. He seemed to her
like an armed savage from whom she must disguise her
fear. When she reached the house she would be safe.
Violence in their class always happened in the open
air; it was restrained by sofas and bric-a-brac. When
she passed through the door she was tempted to
escape to her room, leaving the sick man at Querry’s
mercy, but she steeled h<yself by the thought of what
Rycker might say to her when he had gone, and with
no more than a glance down the passage where

181

safety lay sh« went to the verandah and heard
Querry’s steps following behind.

When she reached the verandah she put on the
voice of a hostess as she might have done a clean frock.
She said, “Can I get you something to drink?”

“It’s a little early. Is your husband really sick?”

“Of course he is. I told you. The mosquitoes are bad
here. We are too close to water. He hadn’t been taking
his paludrin. I don’t know why. You know he has
moods.”

“I suppose it was here that Parkinson got his fever ?”

“Parkinson?”

“The English journalist.”

“That man,” she said with distaste. “Is he still
around ?”

“I don’t know. You were the last people to see him.
After your husband had put him on my track.”

“I am sorry if he troubled you. I wouldn’t answer
any of his questions.”

Querry said, “I had made it quite cleaV to your
husband that I had come here to be private. He forced
himself on me in Luc. He sent you out to the lepro-
serie after me.'He sent Parkinson. He has b£en spread-
ing grotesque stories about me in the towii. Now
there’s this newspaper article and another one is
threatened. I have come to tell your husband that
this persecution has got to stop.”

“Persecution ?”

“Have you another name for it?”

“You don’t understands My husband was excited
by your coming here. At finding you. There are not so
many people he can talk to about what interests him.
He’s very alone.” She was looking across at the river
and the winding-gear of the ferry and the forest on the

183

other side. “When he’s excited by something he wants
to possess it. Like a child.” *

“I have never cared for children.”

“It’s the only young thing about him,” she said, the
words coming quickly and unintentionally out, like
the spurt from a wound.

He said,' “Can’t you persuade him to stpp talking
about me ?“

“I l^ve no influence. He doesn’t listen to me. After
all why should he ?”

“If he loves you ...”

“I don’t know whether he does. He says sometimes
that he only loves God.”

“Then I must speak to him myself. A touch of fever
is not going to stop him hearing what I have to say.”
He added, “I’m not sure of his room, but there aren’t
many in this house. I can find it.”

“No. Please no. He’ll think it’s my fault. He’ll be
angry. I don’t want him angry. I’ve got something to
tell him. Lcan’t if he’s angry. It’s ghastly encyigh as it
is.”

“What’s ghastly?”

She looked at him with an expression of despair.
Tears fotmed in her eyes and began to drip gracelessly
like sweat. She said, “I think I have a baby on the
way.”

“But I thought women usually liked ...”

“He doesn’t want one. But he wouldn’t allow me to
be safe.”

“Have you seen a doctor^”

“No. There’s been no excuse for md to go to Luc,
and we’ve only the one car. I didn’t want him to be
suspicious. He usually wants to know after a time if
everything’s all right.”

“Hasn’t he asked you ?”

“I think he*s forgotten that we did anything since
the time before.”

He was moved unwillingly by her humility. She was
very young and surely she was pretty enough, yet it
seemed nevefc to occur to her that a man ought not to
forget such an act. She said, as if that explained every-
thing, “It was after the Governor’s cocktail party.”

“Are you sure about it ?”

“I’ve missed twice.”

“My dear, in this climate that often happens.” He
said, “I advise you - what’s your name ?”

“Marie.” It was the commonest woman’s name of
all, but it sounded to him like a warning.

“Yes,” she said eagerly, “you advise me ... ?”

“Not to tell your husband yet. We must find some
excuse for you to go to Luc and see the doctor. But
don’t worry too much. Don’t you want tae child?”

“What would be the use of wanting it if he doesn’t ?”

“I would take you in with me now - if we.could find
you an excuse.”

“If anybody can persuade him, you ca*n. He ad-
mires you so-much.”

“I have some medicines to pick up for Doctor Colin
at the hospital, and I was going to buy some surprise
provisions for the fathers too, champagne for when the
roof-tree goes up. But I wouldn’t be able to deliver you
back before tomorrow evening.”

“Oh,” she said, “his boy can look after him far bet-
ter than I can. He’s been \tfith him longer.”

“I meant thfet perhaps he mightn’t trust me ...”

“There hasn’t been rain for days. The roads are
quite good.”

“Shall I talk to him then ?”

184

“It isn’t really what you came to say^ is it?”

“I’ll treafhim as gently as I can. You’ve drawn my
sting.”

She said, “It will be fun - to go to Luc alone. I
mean with you.” She wiped her eyes dry with the
back of her hand; she was no more ashamed of her
tears than 'a child would have been.

“Perhaps the doctor will say you have nothing to
fear, \yhich is his room?”

“Through the door at the end of the passage. You
really won’t be harsh to him?”

“Nf>.”

Rycker was sitting up in bed when he entered. He
was wearing a look of grievance like a mask, but he
took it off quick 1 '/ and substituted another represent-
ing welcome when he saw his visitor. “Why, Querry ?
Was it you ?”

“I came to see you on the way to Luc.”

“It’s good of you to visit me on a bed of sickness.”

Querry-' said, “I wanted to see you about that
stupid article by the Englishman.”

“I gave it to Father Thomas to take to you.”
Rycker’s eyes were bright with fever or pleasure.
“There has never been such a sale in Luc for Paris -
Dimanche , I can tell you that. The bookshop has sent
for extra copies. They say they have ordered a hun-
dred of the next issue.”

“Did it never occur to you how detestable it would
be to me?”

“I know the paper is no'* a very high-class one, but
the article was highly laudatory. Do you realise that
it’s even been reprinted in Italy ? The bishop, so I’m
told, has had an enquiry from Rome.”

“Will you listen to me, Rycker ? I’m trying to speak

* A.

I85

gently because you are sick. But all this has to stop. I
am not a Catholic, I am not even a Christian. I won’t
be adopted by you and your Church.”

Rycker sat under the crucifix, wearing a smile of
understanding.

“I have no belief whatever in a god, Rycker. No
belief in the soul, in eternity. I’m not even interested.”

“Yes. Father Thomas has told me how terribly you
have been suffering from aridity.”

“Father Thomas is a pious fool, and I came out here
to escape fools, Rycker. Will you promise to leave me
in peace or must I go again the way I came £ I was
happy before this started. I found I could work. I was
feeling interested, involved in something ...”

“It’s a penalty of genius to belong to the world.”

If he had to have a tormentor how gladly he would
have chosen the cynical Parkinson. There were inter-
stices in that cracked character where the truth might
occasionally seed. But Rycker was like a wall so
plastered over with church-announcements that you
couldn’t even see the brickwork behind. He said,
“I’m no genius, Rycker. I am a man who* had a cer-
tain talent, not a very great talent, and I have come to
the end of it. There was nothing new I cotild do. I
could only repeat myself. So I gave up. It’s as simple
and commonplace as that. Just as I have given up
women. After all there are only thirty-two ways of
driving a nail into a hole.”

“Parkinson told me of the remorse you felt ...”

“I have never felt remise. Never. You all drama-
tise too much.'We can retire from feelingjust as natur-
ally as we retire from a job. Arc you sure that you still
feel anything, Rycker, that you aren’t pretending to
feel? Would you greatly care if your factory were

186

burnt down tomorrow in a riot ?”

“My heSrt is not in that.”

“And your heart isn’t in your wife either. You made
that clear to me the first time we met. You wanted
someone to save you from St. Paul’s threat of burning.”

“There^is nothing wrong in a Christian marriage,”
Rycker said. “It’s far better than a marriage of pas-
sion. But it you want to know the truth, my heart has
alw%ys been in my faith.”

“I begin to think we are not so different, you and I.
We don’t know what love is. You pretend to love a god
bccatise you love no one else. But I won’t pretend. All
I have left me is a certain regard for the tiuth. It was
the best side of the small talent I had. You are invent-
ing all the time, Kycker, aren’t you ? There are men
who talk about love to prostitutes - they daren’t even
sleep with a woman without inventing some sentiment
to excuse them. You’ve even invented this idea of me
to justify yourself. But I won’t play your game,
Rycker.”*

“When I look at you,” Rycker said, “I can see a
man tormented.”

“Oh nc* you can’t. I haven’t felt any pain at all
in twerJty years. It needs something far bigger than
you to cause me pain.”

“Whether you like it or not, you have set an
example to all of us.”

“An example of what?”

“Unselfishness and humility,” Rycker said.

“I warn you, Rycker, tjiat unless you stop spread-
ing this rubbish about me ... ” *

But he felt his powerlqssness. He had been trapped
into words. A blow would have been simpler and
better, but it was too late now for blows.

187

Ryckcr said, “Saints used to be made by popular
acclaim. I’m not sure that it wasn’t a better method
than a trial in Rome. We have taken you up, Querry.
You don’t belong to yourself any more. You lost your-
self when you prayed with that leper in the forest.”

“I didn’t pray. I only ... ” He stopped. What was
the use ? Rycker had stolen the last word. Only after
he had slammed the door shut did he remember that
he had said nothing of Marie Rycker and of her
journey to Luc.

And of course there she was waiting for him eagerly
and patiently, at the other end of the passage. He
wished that he had brought a bag of sweets with
which to comfort her. She said excitedly, “Did he
agree ?”

“I never asked him.”

“You promised.”

“I got angry, and I forgot. I’m very sorry.”

She said, “I’ll come with you to Luc all the same.”

“You’d better not.”

“Were you very angry with him ?”

“Not very. I kept most of the anger to mynelf.”

“Then I’irf coming.” She left him before tee had time
to protest, and a few moments later she was back with
no more than a Sabena night-bag for the journey.

He said, “You travel light.”

When they reached the truck he asked, “Wouldn’t
it be better if I went back and spoke to him?”

“He might say no. Then what could I do ?”

They left behind them the smell of the margarine
and the ccmetefy of old boilers, and the shadow of the
forest fell on either side. She said politely in her
hostess voice, “Is the hospital going well ?”

“Yes.”

188

“How is the Superior?”

“He is away.”

“Did you have a heavy storm last Saturday? We
did.”

He said, “You don’t have to make conversation
with me.”

“My hifsband says that I am too silent.”

“Silence is not a bad thing.”
is when you are unhappy.”

“I’m sorry. I had forgotten ...”

They drove a few more kilometres without words.
Thei*she asked, “Why did you come here and not
some other place?”

“Because it is a long way off.”

“Other p1 # u ~s are a long way off. The South Pole.”

“When I was at the airport there was no plane
leaving for the South Pole.” She giggled. It was easy
to amuse the young, even the unhappy young. “There
was one going to Tok>o,” he added, “but somehow
this place seemed a lot further off. And I was not in-
terested in geishas or cherry-blossom.”

“You d^n’t mean you really didn’t know where . . .?”

“One ofthe advantages of having an air-credit card
is that )Jbu don’t need to make up your mind where
you are going till the last moment.”

“Haven’t you any family to leave?”

“Not a family. There was someone, but she was
better off without me.”

“Poor her.”

“Oh no. She’s lost nothyig of value. It’s hard for a
woman to live with a man who docsn’tflove her.”

“Yes.”

“There are always the times of day when one ceases
to pretend.”

189

“Yes,” They were silent again until darkness began
to fall and he switched the headlights on. They shone
on a human effigy with a coconut-head, sitting on a
rickety chair. She gave a gasp of fright and pressed
against his shoulder. She said, “I’m scared of things I
don’t understand.”

“Then you must be frightened of a great deal.”
l am.

He put his arm round her shoulders to reassure her.
She said, “Did you say goodbye to her?”

“No.”

“But she must have seen you packing.”

“No. I travel light too.”

“You came away without anything?”

“I had a razor and a toothbrush and a letter of
credit from a bank in America.”

“Do you really mean you didn’t know where you
were going?”

“I had no idea. So it wasn’t any good taking
clothes.”*

The track was rough and he needed both hands on
the wheel. He had never before scrutinise*! his own
behaviour. It had seemed to him at the time the only
logical thing to do. He had eaten a larger breakfast
than usual because he could not be certain of the hour
of his next meal, and then he had taken a taxi. His
journey began in the great all-but-empty airport built
for a world-exhibition which had closed a long time
ago. One could walk a mile through the corridors
without seeing more th^p a scattering of human
beings. In an immense hall people sat apart waiting
for the plane to Tokyo. They looked like statues in an
art-gallery. He had asked for a seat to Tokyo before he
noticed an indicator with African names.

He had said, “Is there a seat on that plane too?”

“Yes, bat there’s no connection to Tokyo after
Rome.”

“I shall go the whole way.” He gave the man his
credit-card.

“Where is your luggage ?”

“I have? no luggage.”

He supposed now that his conduct must have
seeijicd a little odd. He said to the clerk, “Mark my
ticket with my first name only, please. On the
passenger list too. I don’t want to be bothered by the
Press,” It was one of the few advantages which fame
brought a man that he was not automatically regarded
with suspicion because of unusual behaviour. Thus
simply he had thought to cover his tracks, but he had
not entiiely succeeded or the letter signed toute A toi
could never have reached him. Perhaps she had been
to the airport herself to make enquiries. The man there
must have had quite a -.tory to tell her. Even so, at his
destination, no one had known him, and at^he small
hotel he went to - without air-conditioning and with a
shower w^ich didn’t work, no one knew his name. So
it could have been no one but Rycker who had be-
trayed 14s whereabouts ; the ripple of Rycker’s interest
had gone out across half the world like radio-waves,
reaching the international Press. He said abruptly,
“How I wish I’d never met your husband.”

“So do I.”

“It’s done you no harm, surely?”

“I mean - I wish I hadn’t met him either.” The
headlamps caught the wooden poles of a cage high in
the air. She said, “I hate this place. I want to go
home.” #

“We’ve come too far to turn back now.”

191

“That’s not home,” she said. “That’s the fac-
tory.” f

He knew very well what she expected him to say,
but he refused to speak. You uttered a few words of
sympathy - however false and conventional - and ex-
perience taught him what nearly always followed.
Unhappiness was like a hungry animal waiting beside
the track for any victim. He said, “Have jou friends
in Luc to put you up ?”

“We have no friends there. I’ll go with you to the
hotel.”

“Did you leave a note for your husband ?”

“No.”

“It would have been better.”

“Did you leave a note behind before you caught
the plane?”

“That was different. I was not returning.”

She said, “Would you lend me money for a ticket
home - 1 mean, to Europe ?”

“No.”,

“I was afraid you wouldn’t.” As if that settled
everything and there was nothing mote to dp about it,
she fell asleep. He thought rashly: poorjrightencd
beast - this one was too young to be a great danger. It
was only when they were fully grown you couldn’t
trust them with your pity.

2

It was nearly eleven at nigltf before they drove into Luc
past the little river-port. The Bishop’s boat was lying
at her moorings. A cat stopped halfway up the gang-
plank and regarded them, 'and Querry swerved to
avoid a dead piedog stretched in their track waiting

192

for the morning-vulture. The hotel across the square
from the*Governor’s house was decked out with the
relics of gaiety. Perhaps the directors of the local
brewery had been giving their annual party or some
official, who thought himself lucky, had been cele-
brating his recall home. In the bar there were mauve
and pink paper-chains hanging over the tubular st^el
chairs tlfat gave the whole place the cheerless and
functional look of an engine-room; shades which
represented the man in the moon beamed down from
the light-brackets.

There was no air-conditioning in the rooms up-
stairs, and the walls stopped short of the ceiling so that
any privacy was impossible. Every movement was
audible from the neighbouring room, and Querry
could follow every stage of the girl’s retirement - the
zipping of the all-night bag, the clatter of a coat-
hanger, the tinkle of a glass bottle on a porcelain basin.
Shoes were dropped on bare boards, and water ran.
He sat and wondered what he ought to dc»to comfort
her if the doctor told her in the morning that she was
pregnant. He was reminded of his long night’s vigil
with De® Gratias. It had been fear then too that he
had contended with. He heard the bed creak.

He took a bottle of whisky from his sack and poured
himself a glass. Now it was his turn to tinkle, run
water, clatter ; he was like a prisoner in a cell answering
by code the signals of a fellow-convict. An odd sound
reached him through the wall - it sounded to him as
though she were crying, He felt no pity, only irri-
tation. She had forced herself on Mm and she was
threatening now to spoil his night’s sleep. He had not
yet undressed. He took the bottle of whisky with him
and knocked on her door.

193

He saw at once that he bad been wrong. She was sit-
ting up in bed reading a paper-back - she rfiust have
had time to stow that away too in the Sabena bag. He
said, “I’m sorry - 1 thought I heard you crying.”

“Oh no,” sfye said. “I was laughing.” He saw that
it was a popular novel dealing with the life in Paris of
aq, English major. “It’s terribly funny.”

“I brought this along in case you needed cbmfort.”

“Whisky? I’ve never drunk it.”

“You can begin. But you probably won’t like it.”
He washed her toothmug out and poured her a
weak drink.

“You don’t like it?”

She said, “I like the idea. Drinking whisky at mid-
night in a room of my own.”

“It’s not midnight yet.”

“You know what I mean. And reading in bed. My
husband doesn’t like me reading in bed. Especially a
book like this.”

“What’s tvrong with the book ?”

“It’s not serious. It’s not about God. Of course,” she
said, “he has good reason. I’m not properly educated.
The nuns did their best, but it simply didn’t'Jtick.”

“I’m glad you’re not worrying about tomorrow.”

“There may be good news. I’ve got a bit of a
stomach-ache at this moment. It can’t be the whisky
yet, can it? and it might be the curse.” The hostess-
phrases had gone to limbo where the nuns’ learning
lay, and she had reverted to the school-dormitory. It
was absurd to consider th^t anyone so immature
could be in any V>ay a danger.

He asked, “Were you happy when you were at
school?”

“It was bliss.” She bunched her knees higher and
194

said, “Why don’t you sit down ?”

“It’s quite time you were asleep.* He found it im-
possible not to treat her as a child. Rycker, instead of
rupturing her virginity, had sealed it safely down once
and for all*

She said, “What are you going to do? When the
hospitals finished, I mean?” That was the question
they wefe all asking him, but this time he did not
ev^de it: there was a theory that one should always
tell the direct truth to the young.

He said, “I am going to stay. I am never going
bade.”

“You’ll have to - sometime - on leave.”

“The others perhaps, but not me.”

“You’ll ge* sick m the end it you stay.”

“I’m very tough. Anyway what do I care? We all
sooner or later get the same sickness, age. Do you see
those brown marks on the backs of my hands - my
mother used to call them grave-marks.”

“They are only freckles,” she said.

“Oh no, freckles come from the sunlight. These
come frgm the darkness.”

“You are very morbid,” she said, speaking like the
head df the school. “I don’t really understand you. I
have to stay here, but my God if I were free like you . .”

“I will tell you a story,” he said and poured him-
self out a second treble Scotch.

“That’s a very large whisky. You aren’t a heavy
drinker, are you ? My husband is.”

“I’m only a steady one f This one is to help me with
the story. I’m not used to telling stories. How does one
begin?” He drank slowly. “Once upon a time.”

“Really,” she said, k, you and I are much too old
for fairy-stories.”

195

“Yes. That in a way is the story as you’ll see. Once
upon a time there was a boy who lived in* the deep
country.”

“Were you the boy ?”

“No, you mustn’t draw close parallels. They al-
ways say a novelist chooses from his general experience
of life, not from special facts. I have never liv'ed out of
cities until now.”

“Go on.”

“This boy lived with his parents on a farm - not a
very large farm, but it was big enough for them and
two servants and six labourers, a dog, a cat, a cow «...
I suppose there was a pig. I don’t know much about
farms.”

“There seem to be an, awful lot of characters. I shall
fall asleep if I try to remember them all.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to make you do.
His parents used to tell the boy stories about the King
who lived in a city a hundred miles away - about the
distance ofithe furthest star.” ■

“That’s nonsense. A star is billions and billions . . ”

“Yes, but the boy thought the star was a hundred
miles away. He knew nothing about light-years. He
had no idea that the star he was watching had prob-
ably been dead and dark before the world was made.
They told him that, even though the King was far
away, he was watching everything that went on every-
where. When a pig littered, the King knew of it, or
when a moth died against a lamp. When a man and
woman married, he knew tljat too. He was pleased by
their marriage because when they came to litter it
would increase the number of his subjects; so he
rewarded them - you couldn’t see the reward, for the
woman frequently died in childbirth and the child

196

was sometimes born deaf or blind, but, after all, you
cannot seethe air - and yet it exists according to those
who know. When a servant slept with another servant
in a haystack the King punished them. You couldn’t
always see the punishment - the man found a better
job and the girl was more beautiful with her virginity
gone and # afterwards married the foreman, but thaj
was only because the punishment was postponed.
Sometimes it was postponed until the end of life, but
that made no difference because the King was the
King of the dead too and you couldn’t tell what ter-
rible things he might do to them in the grave.

“The boy grew up. He married properly and was
rewarded by the King, although his only child died
and he made 1 o progress in his profession - he had
always wanted to caive statues, as large and impor-
tant as the Sphinx. After his child’s death he quar-
relled with his wife and he was punished by the King
for it. Of course you couldn’t have seen the punish-
ment any "more than you could the reward? you had
to take both on trust. He became in time a famous
jeweller, for one of the women whom he had satisfied
gave him money for his training, and he made many
beautiful things in honour of his mistress and of
course the King, Lots of rewards began to come his
way. Money too. From the King. Everyone agreed
that it all came from the King. He left his wife and his
mistress, he left a lot of women, but he always had a
great deal of fun with them first. They called it love
and so did he, he broke all^he rules he could think of,
and he must surely have been punished for breaking
them, but you couldn’t sge the punishment nor could
he. He grew richer and richer and he made better and
better jewellery, and women were kinder and kinder

197

to him. He had, everyone agreed, a wonderful time.
The only trouble was that he became bored, more and
more bored. Nobody ever seemed to say no to him.
Nobody ever made him suffer - it ( was always
other people who suffered. Sometimes just for a
change he would have welcomed feeling the pain of
jhe punishment that the King must all the time have
been inflicting on him. He could travel wherever he
chose and after a while it seemed to him that he had
gone much further than the hundred miles that
separated him from the King, further than the furthest
star, but wherever he went he always came to th«ame
place where the same things happened: articles in
the papers praised his jewellery, women cheated their
husbands and went to bed with him, and servants of
the King acclaimed him as a loyal and faithful subject.

“Because people could only see the reward, and the
punishment was invisible, he got the reputation of
being a very good man. Sometimes people were a
little perplexed that such a good man should have en-
joyed quite so many women - it was, on the surface
anyway, disloyal to the King who had made quite
other rules. But they learnt in time to explain it; they
said he had a great capacity for love and love had
always been regarded by them as the highest of vir-
tues. Love indeed was the greatest reward even the
King could give, all the greater because it was more
invisible than such little material rewards as money
and success and membership of the Academy. Even
the man himself began to believe that he loved a great
deal better thin all the so-called good people who
obviously could not be so gpod if you knew all (you
had only to look at the punishments they received -
poverty, children dying, losing both legs in a railway

accident and the like). It was quite a shock to him
when he discovered one day that he didn’t love at all.”

“How did he discover that?”

“It was the first of several important discoveries
which he made about that time. Did I tell you that
he was a very clever man, much cleverer than the
people arbund him ? Even as a boy he had discovered
all by hiirtself about the King. Of course there were
his garents’ stories, but they proved nothing. They
might have been old wives’ tales. They loved the King,
they said, but he went one better. He proved that the
Kin$ existed by historical, logical, philosophical and
etymological methods. His parents told him that was
a waste of time : they knew : they had seen the King.
‘Where?’ ‘Tn mr hearts of course.’ He laughed at
them for their simplicity and their superstition. How
could the King possibly be in their hearts when he
was able to prove that he had never stirred from the
city a hundred miles away ? His King existed object-
ively andtfhere was no other King but his.’*

“I don’t like parables much, and I don’t like your
hero.” f

“He doesn’t like himself much, and that’s why he’s
never spoken before - except in this way.”

“What you said about ‘no other king but his’ re-
minds me a little of my husband.”

“You mustn’t accuse a story-teller of introducing
real characters.”

“When are you going to reach a climax? Has it a
happy ending? I don’t wa^it to stay awake otherwise.
Why don’t you describe some of the women ?”

“You are like so many critics. You want me to write
your own sort of story.”

“Have you read Manon LescautV 9

*99

“Years ago.”

“We all lovid it at the convent. Of cdurse it was
strictly forbidden. It was passed from hand to hand,
and I pasted the cover of M. Lejeune’s History of the
Wars of Religion on it. I have it still.”

“You must let me finish my story.”

“Oh well,” she said with resignation, leaning back
against the pillows, “if you must.” '

“I have told you about my hero’s first discovery. His
second came much later when he realised that he was
not bom to be an artist at all : only a very clever jewel-
ler. He made one gold jewel in the shape of an o«trich
egg: it was all enamel and gold and when you opened
it youiound inside a little gold figure sitting at a table
and a little gold and enamel egg on the table, and
when you opened that there was a little figure sitting at
a table and a little gold and enamel egg and when you
opened that ... I needn’t go on. Everyone said he
was a master-technician, but he was highly praised too
for the seriousness of his subject-matter because on the
top of each egg there was a gold cross set with chips of
precious stones in honour of the King. Tfce trouble
was that he iVore himself out with the ingenuity of his
design, and suddenly when he was making the con-
tents of the final egg with an optic glass - that was
what they called magnifying glasses in the old days in
which this story is set, for of course it contains no
reference to our time and no likeness to any living
character ...” He took another long drink of
whisky; he couldn’t remeipber how long it was since
he had experienced the odd elation he was feeling now.
He said, “What am I saying? I think I am a little
drunk. The whisky doesn’t usually affect me in this
way.”

200

“Something about an egg,” her sleepy voice replied
from undfer the sheet. 9

“Oh yes, the second discovery.” It was, he began to
think, a sad story, so that it was hard to understand
this sense of freedom and release, like that of a prisoner
who at last “comes clean,” admitting everything to
his inquisitor. Was this the reward perhaps wliifh
came soifietimes to a writer ? ‘I have told all: you can
ha^g me now.’ “What did you say?”

“The last egg.”

“Oh yes, that was it. Suddenly our hero realised
how bored he was — he never wanted to turn his hand
any more to mounting any jewel at all. He was finished
with his profession - he had come to an end of it.
Nothing coul 1 ever be so ingenious as what he had
done already, or more useless, and he could never hear
any praise higher than what he had received. He knew
what the damned fools could do with their praise.”

“So what?”

“He went to a house number 49 in a street called
the Rue des Remparts where his mistress had kept an
apartment ever since she left her husband. Her name
was Marfc like yours. There was a crow r d outside. He
found the doctor and the police there because an hour
before she had killed herself.”

“How ghastly.”

“Not for him. A long time ago lie had got to the end
of pleasure just as now he had got to the end of w r ork,
although it is true he went on practising pleasure like
a retired dancer continue! to rehearse daily at the bar,
because he has spent all his mornings that way and it
never occurs to him tg stop. So our hero felt only
relief: the bar had been broken, he wouldn’t bother,
he thought, to obtain another. Although, of course,

201

after a month or two he did. However it was too late
then - the morning habit had been brokdn and he
never took it up again with quite the same zeal.’*

“It’s a very unpleasant fairy-story,” the voice said.
He couldn’t see her face because the sheet was pulled
over it. He paid no attention to her criticism.

, “I tell you it isn’t easy leaving a profession Iny more
than you would find it easy leaving a hufoand. In
both cases people talk a lot to you about duty. People
came to him to demand eggs with crosses (it was his
duty to the King and the King’s followers). It almost
seemed from the fuss they made that no one else«was
capable of making eggs or crosses. To try and dis-
courage them and show them how his mind had
changed, he did cut a few more stones as frivolously as
he knew how, exquisite little toads for women to wear
in their navels - navel-jewels became quite a fashion
for a time. He even fashioned little soft golden coats
of mail, with one hollow stone like a knowing eye at
the top, with which men might clothe their special
parts - they came to be known for some reason as
Letters of Marque and for a while they too wpre quite
fashionable as gifts. (You know how difficult jt is for
a woman to find anything to give a man at Christmas.)
So our hero received yet more money and praise, but
what vexed him most was that even these trifles were
now regarded as seriously as his eggs and crosses had
been. He was the King’s jeweller and nothing could
alter that. People declared that he was a moralist and
that these were serious satins on the age - in the end
the idea rather spoilt the sale of the letters, sis you can
imagine. A man hardly wan^ to wear a moral satire
in that place, and women were chary of touching a
moral satire in the way they had liked touching a soft

202

jewelled responsive coat.

“However the fact that his jewels ceased to be
popular with people in general only made him more
popular wijh the connoisseurs who distrust popular
success. They began to write books about his art ; es-
pecially those who claimed to know and love the King
wrote about him. The books all said much the san^e
thing, anS when our hero had read one he had read
them all. There was nearly always a chapter called
Th^Toad in the Hole: the Art of Fallen Man, or else
there was one called From Easter Egg to Letters of
Manque, the Jeweller of Original Sin.”

“Why do you keep on calling him a jeweller?” the
voice said from under the sheet. “You know very well
he was an architect.”

“I warned )cu not to attach real characters to my
story. You’ll be identifying yourself with the other
Marie next. Although, thank God, you’re not the
kind to kill yourself.”

“You’d be surprised what I could do,* she said.
“Your story isn’t a bit like Manon Lescaut , but it’s
pretty miserable all the same.”

“Wfyat^ione of these people knew was that one day
our hero had made a startling discovery - he no longer
believed all those arguments historical, philosophical,
logical and etymological that he had worked out for
the existence of the King. There was left only a
memory of the King who had lived in his parent’s
heart and not in any particular place. Unfortunately
his heart was not the s?jne as the one his parents
shared : it was calloused with pride aifd success, and it
had learned to beat t only with pride when a
building ...”

“You said building.”

203

“When a jewel was completed or when a woman
cried under hiih, ‘ dome , donne y donne \ ” He looked
at the whisky in the bottle : it wasn’t worth preserving
the little that remained; he emptied it into his glass
and he didn’t bother to add water.

“You know/’ he said, “he had deceived himself,
just as much as he had deceived the others! He had
believed quite sincerely that when he loved his work
he was loving the King and that when he made love
to a woman he was at least imitating in a faulty way
the King’s love for his people. The King after all had
so loved the world that he had sent a bull and a shawer
of gold and a son . .

“You are getting it all confused,” the girl said.

“But when he discovered there was no such King as
the one he had believed in, he realised too that any-
thing that he had ever done must have been done for
love of himself. How could there be any point any
longer in making jewels or making love for his own
solitary pleasure ? Perhaps he had reached the end of
his sex and the end of his vocation before he made his
discovery about the King or perhaps that discovery
brought about the end of everything? P’wpuldn’t
know, but I’m told that there were moments when he
wondered if his unbelief were not after all a final and
conclusive proof of the King’s existence. This total
vacancy might be his punishment for the rules he had
wilfully broken. It was even possible that this was what
people meant by pain. The problem was complicated
to the point of absurdity, and he began to envy his
parents’ simple and uncomplex heart, in which they
had always believed that the King lived - and not in
the cold palace as big as St. Peter’s a hundred miles
away.”

204

“So then ?”

“I told ytfu, didn’t I, that it’s just as difficult to leave
a profession as to leave a husband. If you left your
husband there would be acres and acres of daylight
you wouldn’t\now how to cross, and acres of darkness
as well, and of course there would always be telephone
calls and the kind enquiries of friends and the chance
paragraphs in the newspapers. But that part of the*
story has no real interest.”

“S<* he took an air-credit card ...” she said.

The whisky was finished and the equatorial day
broke # outside the window like something smashed
suddenly on the curb of the sky, flowing in a stream of
pale green and pale yellow and flamingo pink along
the horizon, leaving it afterwards just the plain grey
colour of any oil Thursday. He said, “I’ve kept you
awake all night.”

“I wish you’d told me a romantic story. All the same
it took my mind off things.” She giggled under the
sheet. “I oould almost say to him, couldnVt I, that
we’d spent the night together. Do you think that he’d
divorce m$? I suppose not. The Church won’t allow
divorce. The Church says, the Church orders ...”

“Are you really so unhappy ?” He got no reply. To
the young sleep comes as quickly as day to the tropical
town. He opened the door very quietly and went out
into the passage that was still half dark with one all-
night globe palely burning. Some late-sleeper or
early-riser closed a door five rooms away: a flush
choked and swallowed in the silence. He sat on his bed
and the light grew aroundnim - it was the hour of
coolness. He thought: the King is dead, long live the
King. Perhaps he had found here a country and a life.

205

Chapter Two

i

Querry was out early to do as many as he could of the
doctor’s errands before the day became too hot. There
was no sign of Marie Rycker at breakfast, and no
sound over the partition of their rooms. At the Cathe-
dral he collected the letters which had been waiting
for the next boat - he was glad to find that not one of
them was addressed to him. Toute d toi had made her
one gesture towards , his unknown region, and he
hoped for her sake that it had been a gesture of duty
and convention and not of love, for in that case his
silence would do her no further hurt.

By midday he was feeling parched and finding him-
self not far from the wharf he went down to the river
and up the gang-plank of the Bishop’s ^oat to see
whether the captain were on board. He«hesitated a
moment at the foot of the ladder surprised b$ his own
action. It was the first time for a long while that he had
voluntarily made a move towards companionship. He
remembered how fearful he had been when he last
set foot on board and the light was burning in the
cabin. The crew had piled logs on the pontoons ready
for another voyage, and a woman was hanging her
washing between the companion-way and the boiler;
he called “Captain,” as he climbed the ladder, but the
priest who sat at the saloon-table going through the
bills of lading was a stranger to him.

206

“May I come in?”

“I think 1 know who you are. Yoif must be M.
Querry. Shall we open a bottle of beer ?”

Querry asked after the former captain. “He has
been sent to teach moral theology,” his successor
said, “at Wakanga.”

“Was he fcorry to go ?”

“He was delighted. The river-life did not appeal to
him.”

“Tctoyou it does?”

“I don’t know yet. This is my first voyage. It is a
chang(%from canon law. We start tomorrow.”

“To the leproserie?”

“We shall end there. A week. Ten days. I’m not
sure yet about the cargo.”

Querry wtu.n he left the boat felt that he had
aroused no curiosity. The captain had not even asked
him about the new hospital. Perhaps Paris-Dimanche
had done its worst; there was nothing more that
Rycker or Parkinson could inflict on him. It was as
though he were on the verge of acceptance into a new
country, like a refugee he watched the consul lift his
pen to fill^nthe final details of his visa. But the refugee
remains apprehensive to the last ; he has had too many
experiences of the sudden afterthought, the fresh
question or requirement, the strange official who
comes into the room carrying another file. A man was
in the hotel-bar, drinking below the man in the moon
and the chains of mauve paper; it was Parkinson.

Parkinson raised a glass of junk gin and said, “Have
one on me.”

“I thought you had gone away, Parkinson.”

“Only as far as Stanleyville for the riots. Now I’ve
filed my story and I’m a free man again until some-

207

thing turns up. What’s yours ?”

“How long* are you staying here?”

“Until I get a cable from home. Your story has gone
over well. They may want a third instalment.”

“You didn’t use what I gave you.”

“It wasn’j family reading.”

“You can get no more from me.”

“You’d be surprised,” Parkinson said, v what some-
times comes one’s way by pure good luck.” He chinked
the ice against the side of his glass. “Quite a success
that first article had. Full syndication, even the Anti-
podes - except of course behind the curtaip. The
Americans are lapping it up. Religion and an anti-
colonialist angle - you couldn’t have a better mixture
for them. There’s just one thing I do rather regret -
you never took that photograph of me carried ashore
with fever, I had to make do with a photograph which
Mme. Rycker took. But now I’ve got a fine one of
myself in Stanleyville, beside a burnt-out car. Wasn’t
it you Who contradicted me about Stanley ? He must
have been there or they wouldn’t have called the
place after him. Where are you going ?” -

“To my room.”

“Oh yes, 'you are number six, aren’t you, in my
corridor?”

“Number seven.”

Parkinson stirred the ice round with his finger. “Oh,
I see. Number seven. You aren’t vexed with me, are
you ? I assure you those angry words the other day,
they didn’t mean a thing. It was just a way to get you
talking. A man like me can’t afford to be angry. The
darts the picador sticks into the bull are not the real
thing.”

“What is?”

208

“The next instalment. Wait till you read it.”

“I hardly expect to find the moment of truth.”

“ Touchi Parkinson said. “It’s a funny thing about
metaphors — they never really follow through. Perhaps
you won’t believe me, but there was a time when I was
interested in style.” He looked into his glass of gin as
though into a well. “What the hell of a long life it is,
isn’t it ?”

“The other day you seemed afraid to lose it.”

“It’s all I’ve got,” Parkinson said.

The door opened from the blinding street and
Marig Rycker walked in. Parkinson said in a jovial
voice, “Well, fancy, look who’s here.”

“I gave Mme. Rycker a lift from the plantation.”

“Another gin,” Parkinson said to the barman.

“I do not dm Jl gin,” Maiie Rycker told him in her
stilted phrase-book English.

“What do you drink ? Now that I come to think of
it, I don’t remember ever seeing you with a glass in
your hand all the time I stayed with you. ‘Have an
orange pressee, my child?”

“I am yery fond of whisky,” Marie Rycker said
with privet*

“Good for you. You are growing up fast.” He went
down the length of the bar to give the order and on his
way he made a little jump, agile in so fat a man, and
set the paper-chains rocking with the palm of his hand.

“Any news?” Qucrry asked.

“He can’t tell me - not until the day-after-tomor-
row. He thinks ...”

“Yes.”

“He thinks I’m caught,” she said gloomily and then
Parkinson was back beside them holding the glass. He
said, “I heard your old man had the fever.”

209

“Yes.”

“Don’t I know what it feels like !” Parkinson said.
“He’s lucky to have a young wife to look after
him.”

“He does not need me for a nurse.”

“Are you staying here long ?”

“I do not know. Two days perhaps.”

“Time for a meal with me then?”

“Oh no. No time for that,” she said without hesi-
tation.

He grinned without mirth. “ Touchi again.”

When she had drained her whisky she siyd to
Querry, “We’re lunching together, aren’t we, you and
I ? Give me just a minute for a wash. I’ll fetch my
key.”

“Allow me,” Parkinson said, and before she had
time to protest, he was already back at the bar, swing-
ing her key on his little finger. “Number six,” he said,
“so we are all three on the same floor.”

Querry said, “I’ll come up with you.” r

She looked into her room and came quickly back to
his. She asked, “Can I come in? You can’t think how
squalid it is in mine. I got up too late and tk ey haven’t
made the bed.” She wiped her face with his towel,
then looked ruefully at the marks which her powder
had left. “I’m sorry. What a mess I’ve made. I didn’t
mean to.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Women are disgusting, aren’t they?”

“In a long life I haven’t found them so.”

“See what I’ t ye landed $ou with now. Twenty-four
more hours in a hole like this.”

“Can’t the doctor write to you about the result ?”

“I can’t go back until I know. Don’t you see how

210

impossible that would be ? If the answer’s yes, I’ve got
to tell him right away. It was my #nly excuse for
coming anyway.”

“And if the answer’s no?”

“I’ll be so*happy then I won’t care about anything.
Perhaps I won’t even go back.” She asked him, “What
is a rabbit# test?”

“I don’t know exactly. I believe they take your
urine, and cut the rabbit open ...”

“Up they do that ?” she asked with horror.

“They sew the rabbit up again. I think it survives
for another test.”

“I wonder why we all have to know the worst so
quickly. At a poor beast’s expense.”

“Haven’t you any wish at all for a child?”

“For a youAig Ryrkcr ? No.” She took the comb out
of his brush and without examining it pushed it
through her hair. “I didn’t trap you into lunch, did
I ? You weren’t eating with anyone else ?”

“No.”

“It’s just that I can’t stand that man out there.”

But it \yas impossible to get far away from him in
Luc. Th^rowere only two restaurants in the town and
they chose the same one. The three of them were the
only people there; he watched them between bites
from his table by the door. He had slung his Rolleiflex
on the chair-back beside him much as civilians slung
their revolvers in these uncertain days. At least you
could say of him that he went hunting with a camera
only.

Marie Ryckcr gave hefself a secqnd helping of
potatoes. “Don’t tell me,” she “said, “that I’m eating
enough for two.”

1 won t.

211

“It’s the stock colon joke, you know, for someone
with worms.”

“How is your stomach-ache?**

“Alas, it’s gone. The doctor seemed to think that it
had no connection.**

“Hadn’t you better telephone to your husband?
Surely he’ll be anxious if you don’t come bafok today.”

“The lines are probably down. They usually are.”

“There hasn’t been a storm.”

“The Africans are always stealing the wire.”

She finished off a horrible mauve dessert before she
spoke again. “I expect you are right. I’ll telephone,”
and she left him alone with his coffee. His cup and
Parkinson’s clinked in unison over the empty tables.

Parkinson called across, “The mail’s not in. I’ve
been expecting a copy of my second article. I’ll drop
it in your room if it comes. Let me see. Is it six or seven ?
It wouldn’t do to get the wrong room, would it ?”

“You needn’t bother.”

“You 'owe me a photograph. Perhaps, you and
Mme. Rycker would oblige.”

“You’ll get no photograph from me, ParVinson.”

Querry paid the bill and went to find the' telephone.
It stood on a desk where a woman with blue hair and
blue spectacles was writing her accounts with an
orange pen. “It’s ringing,” Marie Rycker said, “but
he doesn’t answer.”

“I hope his fever’s not worse.”

“He’s probably gone across to the factory.” She put
the telephone down and said, “I’ve done my best,
haven’t I?” r c

“You could try again this evening before we have
dinner.”

“You are stuck with me, aren’t you ?”

212

“No more than you with me”

“Have yo'u any more stories to tell?”*

“No. I only know the one.”

She said, “jt’s an awful time till tomorrow. I don’t
know what to do until I know.”

“Lie down awhile.”

“I can’t . 1 Would it be very stupid if I went to the
cathedral a Ad prayed?”

“Nothing is stupid that makes the time pass.”

“BiK if the thing is here,” she said, “inside me, it
couldn’t suddenly disappear, could it, if I prayed?”

“I wouldn’t think so.” He said reluctantly, “Even
the priests don’t ask you to believe that. They would
tell you, I suppose, to pray that God’s will be done.
But don’t expect me to talk to you about prayer.”

“I’d want 10 know what his will was before I prayed
anything like that,” she said. “All the same, I think
I’ll go and pray. I could pray to be happy, couldn’t
I?”

“I suppose so.”

“That would cover almost everything.”

2

Querry too found the hours hanging heavily. Again
he walked down to the river. Work had stopped upon
the Bishop’s boat, and there was no one on board. In
the little square the shops were shuttered. It seemed as
though all the world were asleep except himself and the
girl who, he supposed, was still praying. But when he
returned to the hotel he found that Parkinson at least
was awake. He stood uiyler tfie mauve-and-paper
streamers, with his eyes upon the door. After Querry
had crossed the threshold, he came tiptoeing forward

213

and said with sly urgent importance, ‘*1 must have a
word with yo(i quietly before you go to your room.”

“What about?”

“The general situation,” Parkinson ,said. “Storm
over Luc. Do you know who’s up there?”

“Up where?”

“On the first floor.”

“You seem very anxious to tell me. Go 'ahead.”

“The husband,” Parkinson said heavily.

“What husband?”

“Rycker. He’s looking for his wife.”

“I think he’ll find her in the Cathedral.”

“It’s not as simple as all that. He knows you’re with
her.”

“Of course he does. I was at his house yesterday.”

“All the same I don’t think he expected to find you
here in adjoining rooms.”

“You think like a gossip-writer,” Querry said.
“What difference does it make whether rooms adjoin ?
You carfsleep together from opposite ends bf a passage
just as easily.”

“Don’t underrate the gossip- writers. They write
history. From Fair Rosamund to Eva Briun ”

“I don’t think history will be much concerned with
the Ryckers.” He went to the desk and said, “My
bill, please. I’m leaving now.”

“Running away ?” Parkinson asked.

“Why running away? I was only staying here to
give her a lift back. Now I can leave her with her hus-
band. She’s his responsibility.”

“You are a cold-blpoded devil,” Parkinson said. “I
begin to believe some of tlje things you told me.”

“Print them instead of your pious rubbish. It might
be interesting to tell the truth for once.”

214

“But which truth? You aren’t as simple-minded as
you make 6ut, Querry, and there weren’t any lies
of fact in what I wrote. Leaving out Stanley, of
course.”

■*

“And your pirogue and your faithful servants.”

“Anyway, what I wrote aboutjou was true.”

“No.”

“You hate buried yourself here, haven’t you? You '
are working for the lepers. You did pursue that man
into the forest ... It all adds up, you know, to what
people like to call goodness.”

“I know my own motives.”

“Do you ? And did the saints ? What about ‘most
miserable sinner’ and all that crap?”

“You talk - almost - as Father Thomas does. Not
quite, of couise.

“History’s just as likely to take my interpretation as
your own. I told you I was going to build you up,
Querry. Unless, of course, as now seems likely, I find
it makes a better story it I pull you down.”

“Do you really believe you have all that power ?”

“Montagu Parkinson has a very wide syndica-
tion.”

The woman with blue hair said, “Your bill, M.
Querry,” and he turned to pay. “Isn’t it worth your
while,” Parkinson said, “to ask me a favour?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been threatened often in my time. I’ve had
my camera smashed twice. I’ve spent a night in a
police-cell. Three times in a restaurant somebody hit
me.” For a moment he sounded like St*. Paul : ‘Three
times I was beaten with pods, once I was stoned; I
have been shipwrecked three times . . . ' He said,
“The strange thing is that no one has ever appealed to

2*5

my better nature. It might work. It’s probably there,
you know, sofnewhere ...” It was like a genuine
grief.

Querry said gently, “Perhaps I woulji, Parkinson,
if I cared at all.”

Parkinson said, “I can’t bear that damned in-
difference of yours. Do you know what he found up
there ? But you wouldn’t ask a journalist for infor-
mation, would you ? There’s a towel in your room. I
showed it him myself. And a comb with long hair in
it.” The misery of being Parkinson for a moment
looked out of his wounded eyes. He said, “I!m dis-
appointed in you, Querry. I’d begun to believe my
own story about you.”

“I’m sorry,” Querry said.

“A man’s got to believe a bit or contract out al-
together.”

Somebody stumbled at the turn of the stairs. It was
Rycker coming down. He had a book of some kind in
his hand in a pulpy scarlet cover. The firtgers on the
rail shook as he came, from the remains of fever or
from nerves. He stopped and the fat-boy mask of the
man in the moon grinned at him from a neighbouring
light-bracket. He said, “Querry.”

“Hello, Rycker, are you feeling better?”

“I can’t understand it,” Rycker said. “You of all
men in the world ...” He seemed to be searching
desperately for cliches, the cliches from the Marie-
Chantal serials rather than the cliches he was accus-
tomed to from his reading in theology. “I thought you
were my friend, Querry. '

The orange pen was suspiciously busy behind the
desk and the blue head was unconvincingly bent. “I
don’t know what you are talking about, Rycker,”

216

Querry said. “You’d better come into the bar. We’ll
be more afone there.” Parkinson prepared to follow
them, but Querry blocked the door. He said, “No,
Parkinson, tjiis isn’t a story for the Post.”

“I have nothing to hide from Mr. Parkinson,”
Rycker said in English.

“As you wish.” The heat of the afternoon had
driven awtfy even the barman. The paper streamers ’
hung down like old man’s beard. Querry said, “Your
wife tried to telephone to you at lunch-time, but there
was no reply.”

“What do you suppose ? I was on the road by six
this morning.”

“I’m glad you’ve come. I shall be able to leave
now.”

Rycker s<ud, ‘It’s no good denying anything,
Querry, anything at all. I’ve been to my wife’s room,
number six, and you’ve got the key of number seven
in your pocket.”

“You needn’t jump to stupid conclusions? Rycker.
Even about towels and combs. What if she did wash
in my roorn this morning ? As for rooms they were the
only onqp prepared when we arrived.”

“Why did you take her away without so much as
a word . . . ?”

“I meant to tell you, but you and I talked about
other things.” He looked at Parkinson leaning on the
bar. He was watching their mouths closely as though
in that way he might come to understand the language
they were using.

“She went and left me illVith a high fever ...”

“You had your boy. There w&e things she had to do
in town.”

“What things?”

217

"I think that’s for her to tell you, Rycker. A woman
can have her Sbcrets.”

“You seem to share them all right. Hasn’t a hus-
band got the right ... ?”

“You are too fond of talking about rights, Rycker.
She has her, rights too. But I’m not going to stand and
argue ...”

“Where are you going?”

“To find my boy. I want to start for home. We can
do nearly four hours before dark.”

“I’ve got a lot more to talk to you about.”

“What ? The love of God ?”

“No,” Rycker said, “about this.” He held the book
open at a page headed with a date. Querry saw that it
was a diary with ruled lines and between them the
kind of careful script girls learn to write at school.
“Go on,” Rycker said, “read it.”

“I don’t read other people’s diaries.”

“Then I’ll read it to you. ‘Spent night with Q\”

Querry smiled. He said, “It’s true - in a way. We
sat drinking whisky and I told her a long story.”

“I don’t believe a word you’re saying.” ,

“You deserve to be a cuckold, Rycker, I never
went in for seducing children.”

“I can imagine what the Courts would say to this.”

“Be careful, Rycker. Don’t threaten me. I might
change my mind.”

“I could make you pay,” Rycker said, “pay
heavily.”

“I doubt whether any court in the world would take
your word against hers arfd mine. Goodbye, Rycker.”

“You can’t walk ovlt of here as though nothing had
happened.”

“I would have liked to leave you in suspense, but it

218

wouldn't be fair to her. Nothing has happened,
Rycker. I haven’t even kissed your wife. She doesn’t
attract me in that way.”

“What ri^ht have you to despise us as you do?”

“Be a sensible man. Put that diary back where you
found it and say nothing.”

“ ‘Spent the night with Q’ and say nothing?”

Querry turned to Parkinson. “Give your friend a '
drink and talk some sense into him. You owe him an
article.”

“A duel would make a good story,” Parkinson said
wistfully.

“It’s lucky for her I’m not a violent man,” Rycker
said. “A good thrashing ...”

“Is that a part of Christian marriage, too ?”

He felt an exlaordinary weariness; he had lived a
lifetime in the middle of some such scene as this, he
had been born to such voices, and if he were not care-
ful, he would die with them in his ears. He walked out
on the twp of them, paying no attention «at all to
the near scream of Rycker, “I’ve got a right to
demand ...” In the cabin of the truck sitting beside
Deo Gratfe^ he was at peace again. He said, “You’ve
never been back, have you, into the forest, and I know
you’ll never take me there . . . All the same, I wish
... Is Pendele very far away ?”

Deo Gratias sat with his head down, saying nothing.

“Never mind.”

Outside the Cathedral Querry stopped the truck
and got out. It would be wiser to warn her. The doors
were open for ventilation* and the hideous win-
dows through which the hard light glared in red and
blue made the sun more clamorous than outside. The
boots of a priest going to the sacristy squealed on the

219

tiled floor, and a mammy chinked her beads. It was
not a church for meditation; it was as hot* and public
as a market-place, and in the side-chapels stood plas-
ter stallholders, offering a baby or a blepding heart.
Marie Rycker was sitting under a statue of Ste. Therese
of Lisieux. Jt seemed a less than suitable choice. The
two had nothing in common but youth.

He asked her, “Still praying?”

“Not really. I didn’t hear you come.”

“Your husband’s at the hotel.”

“Oh,” she said flatly, looking up at the saint who
had disappointed her.

“He’s been reading a diary you left in your room.
You oughtn’t to have written what you did - ‘Spent
the night with Q.’ ”

“It was true, wasn’t it? Besides I put in an exclam-
ation mark to show.”

“Show what?”

“That it wasn’t serious. The nuns never minded if
you put an exclamation mark. ‘Mother Superior in a
tearing rage!’ They always called it the ‘exaggeration
mark’.”

“I don’t think your husband knows tjfe convent
code.”

“So he really believes . . . ?” she asked and giggled.

“I’ve tried to persuade him otherwise.”

“It seems such a waste, doesn’t it, if he believes that.
We might just as well have really done it. Where are
you going now?”

“I’m driving home.”

“I’d come with you if you liked. Only I know you
don’t like.”

He looked up at the plaster face with its simpering
and holy smile. “What would she say

220

“I don’t consult her about everything. Only in
extremis. Though this is pretty extremis aow, I suppose,
isn’t it ? What with this and that. Have I got to tell him
about the Ijaby?”

“It would be better to tell him before he finds out.”

“And 1 prayed to her so hard for happiness,” she
said disdainfully. “What a hope. Do you believe in
prayer at all?”

“No.”

“Did you never ?”

“I suppose I believed once. When I believed in
giantg.” He looked around the church, at the altar, the
tabernacle, the brass candles and the European saints,
pale like albinos in the dark continent. He could
detect in himself a dim nostalgia for the past, but
everyone ah\ a> s felt that, he supposed, in middle age,
even for a past of pain, when pain was associated with
youth. If there were a place called Pendele, he thought.
I would never bother to find my way back.

“You think I’ve been wasting my time, don’t you,
praying?”

“It was better than lying on your bed brooding.”

“You don’t believe in prayer at all - or in God ?”

“No. He said gently, “Of course, I may be wrong.”

“And Rycker does,” she said, calling him by his sur-
name as though he were no longer her husband. “I
wish it wasn’t always the wrong people who believed.”

“Surely the nuns ...”

“Oh, they are professionals. They believe anything.
Even the Holy House of Loretto. They ask us to believe
too much and then we behave less and less.” Perhaps
she was talking in order to postpone the moment of
return. She said, “Once 2 got into trouble drawing a
picture of the Holy House in full flight with jet-

221

engines. How much did you believe - when you be-
lieved ?”

“I suppose, like the boy in the story I told you, I
persuaded myself to believe almost everything with
arguments. You can brainwash yourself into any-
thing you w?mt - even into marriage or a vocation.
Then the years pass and the marriage or the vocation
'fails and it’s better to get out. It’s the 'same with
belief. People hang on to a marriage for fear of a lonely
old age or to a vocation for fear of poverty. It’s not a
good reason. And it’s not a good reason to hang on to
the Church for the sake of some mumbo-jumbo # when
you come to die.”

“And what about the mumbo-jumbo of birth?”
she asked. “If there’s a baby inside me now, I’ll have
to have it christened, won’t I ? I’m not sure that I’d be
happy if it wasn’t. Is that dishonest? If only it hadn’t
him for a father.”

“Of course it isn’t dishonest. You mustn’t think
your manriage has failed yet.”

“Oh but it has.”

“I didn’t mean with Rycker, I meant ...” He
said sharply. “For God’s sake, don’t start taking me
for an example, too.”

222

Chapter Three

i

The rathd- sweet champagne was the best that
Querry had been able to find in Luc, and it had not
beerfimproved by the three-day drive in the truck and
a breakdown at the first ferry. The nuns provided
tinned pea-soup, four lean roast chickens and an am-
biguous sweet omelette which they had made with
guava jelly: the omelette had sat down half way be-
tween their house and the fathers’. But on this day,
when the ceiemony of raising the roof- tree was over at
last, no one felt in a mood to criticise. An awning had
been set up outside the dispensary, and at long
trestle tables the priests and nuns had provided a feast
for the lep'ers who had worked on the hospital and
their families, official and unofficial; beer was there
for the mjn and fizzy fruit drinks and buns for the
women and children. The nuns’ own celebration had
been prepared in strict privacy, but it was rumoured
to consist mainly of extra strong coffee and some boxes
of petits fours that had been kept in reserve since the
previous Christmas and had probably turned musty
in the interval.

Before the feast there was a service. Father Thomas
trapesed round the new hospital, supported by Father
Joseph and Father Paul, sprinkling the walls with
holy water, and several hymfis were sung in the
Mongo language. There Aad been prayers and a ser-
mon from Father Thomas which went on far too long -

223

he had not yet learned enough of the native tongue to
make himself properly understood. Some of the
younger lepers grew impatient and wandered away,
and a child was found by Brother Philippo'^rrosmg the
new walls with his own form of water.

Nobody cared that a small dissident group who had
, nothing to do with the local tribe sang r their own
hymns apart. Only the doctor, who had dhce worked
in the Lower Congo, recognised them for what they
were, trouble-makers from the coast more than a
thousand kilometres away. It was unlikely that any of
the lepers could understand them, so he let them be.
The only sign of their long journey by path and water
and road was an unfamiliar stack of bicycles up a side-
path into the bush which he had happened to take
that morning.

“E ku Kinshasa ka bazeyi ko:

E ku Luozx ka bazeyi ko ... . ”

“In Kinshasa they know nothing:

In Lu&zi they know nothing.”

The proud song of superiority went on : superiority to
their own people, to the white man, to th^ Christian
god, to everyone beyond their own circle*ofr»ix, all of
them wearing the peaked caps that advertised Polo
beer.

“In the Upper Congo they know nothing:

In heaven they know nothing :

Those who revile the Spirit know nothing:

The Chiefs know nothing:

The whites know nothing.”

Nzambe had never beenfnumiliated as a criminal : he
was an exclusive god.* Only Deo Gratias moved some
way towards them; he squatted on the ground be-
tween them and the hospital, and the doctor remem-

224

bered that as a child he had come west from the
Lower Congo too.

“Is that the future ?” Querry said. He couldn’t
understancNfcie words, only the aggressive slant of the
Polo-beer caps.

“Yes.”

“Do you fear it?”

“Of coursfe. But I don’t want my own liberty at the
expense of anyone else.”

' “Tfifey do.”

“We taught them.”

WhaC with one delay and another it was nearly
sunset before the tree was raised on to the roof and the
feast began. By that time the awning outside the dis-
pensary was no longer needed to shelter the workmen
from the heat, but judging from the black clouds mas-
sing beyond the river, Father Joseph decided that it
might yet serve to protect them from the rain.

Father Thomas’s decirion to raise the roof-tree had
not been made without argument. Father^ Joseph
wished to wait a month in the hope that the Superior
would return, and Father Paul had at first supported
him, buttvrtien Doctor Colin agreed with Father
Thomas they had withdrawn their opposition. “Let
Father Thomas have his feast and his hymns,” the
doctor said to them. “I want the hospital.”

Doctor Colin and Querry left the group from the
i east and turned back to the last of the ceremony. “We
were right, but all the same,” the doctor said, “I wish
the Superior were here. He would have enjoyed the
show and at least he would have talked {o these people
in a language they can understand.”

“More briefly too,” Querry said. The hollow
African voices rose around them in another hymn.

225

“And yet you stay and watch,” the doctor said.

“Oh yes, I ♦stay.”

“I wonder why.”

“Ancestral voices. Memories. Did yc/u ever lie
awake when you were a child listening to them talking
down below? You couldn’t understand what they
were saying, but it was a noise that somehow com-
forted. So it is now with me. I am hap^y listening,
saying nothing. The house is not on fire, there’s no
burglar lurking in the next room: I don’t want to
understand or believe. I would have to think if I
believed. I don’t want to think any more. I can build
you all the rabbit-hutches you need without thought.”

Afterwards at the mission there was a great deal of
raillery over the champagne. Father Paul was caught
pouring himself a glass out of turn; somebody -
Brother Philippe seemed an unlikely culprit - filled an
empty bottle with soda-water, and the bottle had cir-
culated half around the table before anyone noticed.
Querry Vemembered an occasion months ago : a night
at a seminary on the river when the priests cheated
over their cards. He had walked out into the bush un-
able to bear their laughter and their infrfhtHity. How
was it that he could sit here now and smile with them ?
He even found himself resenting the strict face of
Father Thomas who sat at the end of the table un-
amused.

The doctor proposed the toast of Father Joseph and
Father Joseph proposed the toast of the doctor. Father
Paul proposed the toast of Brother Philippe, and
Brother Philippe lapsed into confusion and silence.
Father Jean proposed the tpast of Father Thomas who
did not respond. The champagne had almost reached
an end, but someone disinterred from the back of the

226

cupboard ^ half-finished bottle of Sandeman’s port
and they drank it out of liqueur glasses to make it go
further. “After all the English drink port at the end
of a meaTj* Father Jean said. “An extraordinary
custom, Protestant perhaps, but nevertheless . . .”

“Are you sure there’s nothing against it in moral
theology?’* Father Paul asked.

“Only in canon law. Lex contra Sandemanium , but
even that, of course, was interpreted by that eminent
Benedictine, Dom ...”

“Father Thomas, won’t you have a glass of port?”

“N<5 thank you, father. I have drunk enough.”

The darkness outside the open door suddenly drew
back and for a moment they could see the palm trees
bending in a strange yellow light the colour of old
photographs. Then everything went dark again, and
the wind blew in, rustling the pages of Father Jean’s
film magazines. Querry got up to close it against the
coming stopn, but on a second thought he stepped out-
side and shut it behind him. The northern sky light-
ened again, in a long band above the river. From where
the lepers«were celebrating came the sound of drums
and the Phunder answered like the reply of a relieving
force. Somebody moved on the verandah. When the
lightning flashed he saw that it was Deo Gratias.

“Why aren’t you at the feast, Deo Gratias?” Then
he remembered that the feast was only for the non-
mutilated, for the masons and carpenters and brick-
layers. He said, “Well, they’ve done a good job on the
hospital.” The man made ncj reply. Querry said, “You
aren’t planning to run away agpin, ar£ you ?” and he
lit a cigarette and put it between the man’s lips.

“No,” Deo Gratias said.

In the darkness Querry felt himself prodded by the

227

man’s stump. He said, “What’s troubling you, Deo
Gratias?”

“You will go,’* Deo Gratias said, “now that the hos-
pital house is built.”

“Oh no, I won’t. This is where I’m going to end my
days. I can’t go back where I came from, Deo Gratias.
«I don’t belong there any more.”

“Have you killed a man ?”

“I have killed everything.” The thunder came
nearer, and then the rain : first it was like skirmishers
rustling furtively among the palm tree fans, creeping
through the grass ; then it was the confident tredd of a
great watery host beating a way from across the river to
sweep up the verandah-steps. The drums of the lepers
were extinguished like flames; even the thunder could
be heard only faintly behind the great charge of rain.

Deo Gradas hobbled closer. “I want to go with
you,” he said.

“I tell you I’m staying here. Why won’t you believe
me ? For the rest of my life. I shall be buried here.”

Perhaps he had not made himself heard through the
rain, for Deo Gratias repeated, “I will go v ith you.”
Somewhere a telephone began to ring - trivial
human sound persisting like an infant’s cry through
the rain.

2

After Querry had left the room Father Thomas said,
“We seem to have toasted everyone except the man to
whom we owe most.” 0

Father Joseph said, “He knows well enough how
grateful we are. Those toasts were not very seriously
meant, Father Thomas.”

“I think I ought to express the gratitude of the corn-
228

munity, formally, when he comes back.”

“You’ll only embarrass him,” Doctor Colin said.
“All he wants of any of us is to be left alone.” The rain
pounded the roof; Brother Philippe began to light
candles on the dresser in case the electric current failed.

“It was a happy day for all of us when he arrived
here,” Father Thomas said. “Who could have fore-*
seen it? The great Querry.”

“An even happier day for him,” the doctor replied.
“It*s much more difficult to cure the mind than the
body, and yet I think the cure is nearly complete.”

“The better the man the worse the aridity,” Father
Thomas said.

Father Joseph looked guiltily at his champagne
and then at his companions; Father Thomas made
them all fed as though they were drinking in church.
“A man with little faith doesn’t feel the temporary
loss of it.” His sentiments were impeccable. Father
Paul winked at Fa the- Jean.

“Surely,” the doctor said, “you assume too much.
His case may be muc h simpler than that. A man can
believe for half his life on insufficient reason, and then
he discoters his mistake.”

“You talk, doctor, like all atheists, as though there
were no such thing as grace. Belief without grace is un-
thinkable, and God will never rob a man of grace.
Only a man himself can do that - by his own actions.
We have seen Querry’s actions here, and they speak
for themselves.”

“I hope you won’t be disappointed,” the doctor
said. “In our treatment w£ g^t burnt-out cases, too.
But we don’t say they are suffering from aridity. We
only say the disease has run its course.”

“You are a very good doctor, but all the same I think

229

we are better judges of a man’s spiritual condition.”

“I dare say you are - if such a thing exists.”

“You can detect a patch on the skin where we see
nothing at all. You must allow us to have'Sfnose for -
well ...” Father Thomas hesitated and then said
“ . . . heroic’virtue.” Their voices were raised a little
against the storm. The telephone began to'ring.

Doctor Colin said, “That’s probably the hospital.
I’m expecting a death tonight.” He went to the side-
board where the telephone stood and lifted the re-
ceiver. He said, “Who is it? Is that Sister Clare?” He
said to Father Thomas, “It must be one of your sisters.
Will you take it ? I can’t hear what she is saying.”

“Perhaps they have got at our champagne,” Father
Joseph said.

Dodtor Colin surrendered the receiver to Father
Thomas and came back to the table. “She sounded
agitated, whoever she was,” he said.

“Pleasq s P ea k more slowly,” Father Thomas said.
“Who is it? Sister Helene? I can’t hear you - the
storm is too loud. Say that again. I don’t understand.”

“It’s lucky for us all,” Father Joseph said, '“that the
sisters don’t have a feast every day of the week.”

Father Thomas turned furiously from the tele-
phone. He said, “Be quiet, father. I can’t hear if you
talk. This is no joke. A terrible thing seems to have
happened.”

“Is somebody ill ?” the doctor asked.

“Tell Mother Agnes,” Father Thomas said, “that
I’ll be over as soon as I cap. I had better find him and
bring him with*me.” He Jiut the receiver down and
stood bent like a question-mark over the telephone.

“What is it, father?” the doctor said. “Can I be of
use?”

230

“Does ^iyone know where Querry’s gone?”

“He went outside a few minutes ajfo.”

“Howlwish the Superior were here.” They looked
at FatherS. liomas with astonishment. He could not
have given a more extreme signal of distress.

“You had better tell us what it’s all about,” Father
Paul said)

Father ^Thomas said, “I envy you your skin-test,
doctor. You were right to warn me against disappoint-
ment. The Superior too. He said much the same thing
as you. I have trusted too much to appearances.”

“Has Querry done something?”

“God forbid one should condemn any man without
hearing all the facts ...”

The door opened and Querry entered. The rain
splashed irr behind him and he had to struggle with
the door. He said, “The gauge outside shows nearly
half a centimetre already.”

Nobody spoke. Father Thomas came a_ little way
towards him.

“M. Querry, is it true that when you went into Luc
you wen* with Mme. Ryckcr ?”

“I drove her in. Yes.”

“Using our truck ?”

“Of course.”

“While her husband was sick ?”

“Yes.”

“What is this all about?” Father Joseph asked.

“Ask M. Querry,” Father Thomas replied.

“Ask me what?”

Father Thomas drew ^>n # his rubber-boots and
fetched his umbrella from the coat-rack.

“What am I supposed to have done ?” Querry said
and he looked first to Father Joseph and then to

231

Father Paul. Father Paul made a gesture with his
hand of non-comprehension.

“You had better tell us what is going on, father,”
Doctor Colin said.

“I must ask you to come with me, M. Querry. We
will discuss What has to be done next with the sisters. I
had hoped against hope that there was soirfe mistake.
I even wish you had tried to lie. It would have been
less brazen. I don’t want you found here by Rycker if
he should arrive.”

“What would Rycker want here ?” Fatherjeansaid.

“He might be expected to want his wife, mightn’t
he? She’s with the sisters now. She arrived half an
hour ago. After three days by herself on the road. She
is with child,” Father Thomas said. The telephone
began to ring again. “Your child.”

Querry said, “That’s nonsense. She can’t have told
anyone that.”

“Poor girl. I suppose she hadn’t the nervo-to tell him
to his face. She came from Luc to find you.”

The telephone rang again.

“It seems to be my turn to answer it,” Fatter Joseph
said, approaching the telephone with trepidation.

“We gave you a warm welcome here, didn’t we ?
We asked you no questions. We didn’t pry into your
past. And in return you present us with this - scandal.
Weren’t there enough women for you in Europe ?”
Father Thomas said. “Did you have to make our little
community here a base for your operations?” Sud-
denly he was again the r^ervy and despairing priest
who couldn’t sleep and Was afraid of the dark. He
began to weep, clinging to his umbrella as an African
might cling to a totem-pole. He looked as though he
had been left out all night like a scarecrow.

232

V

“Hullo, hullo,” Father Joseph called into the tele-
phone. “In the name of all the known saints, can’t you
speak up, whoever you are ?”

“I’ll gcrftfed see her with you right away,” Querry
said.

“It’s your right,” Father Thomas said. “She’s in no
condition t* argue, though. She’s had nothing but a
packet of chocolate to eat the last three days. She
hadn’t even a boy with her when she arrived. If only
the Superior . . . Mme. Ryckcr of all people. Such
kindness to the mission. For God’s sake, what is it now,
Fathe^Joseph ?”

“It’s only the hospital,” Father Joseph said with
relief. He gave the receiver to Doctor Colin. “It is
the death I was expecting,” the doctor said. “Thank
goodness something tonight seems to be following a
normal course.”

3

Father Thomas walked silently ahead below his great
umbrella. JThe rain had stopped for a while, but the
aftermatfl dripped from the ribs. Father Thomas was
only visible at intervals when the lightning flared. He
had no torch, but he knew the path by heart in the
dark. Many omelettes and souffles had come to grief
along this track, eggs broken in vain. The nuns’ white
house was suddenly close to them in a simultaneous
flash and roar - the lightning had struck a tree some-
where close by and all the lights of the mission fused
at once.

One of the sisters met them at the door carrying a
candle. She looked at Querry over Father Thomas’s
shoulder as though he were the devil himself - with

233

fear, distaste and curiosity. She said, "Mother’s sitting
with Mme. R'/cker.”

"We’ll go in,” Father Thomas said gloomily.

She led them to a white painted room/f^nere Marie
Rycker lay in a white painted bed under a crucifix,
with a night-light burning beside her. Mother Agnes
sat by the bed with a hand touching Mairie Rycker’s
cheek. Querry had the impression of a daughter who
had come safely home, after a long visit to a foreign
land.

Father Thomas said in an altar- whisper, "How is
she?”

"She’s taken no harm,” Mother Agnes said, "not
in the body, that is.”

Marie Rycker turned in the bed and looked up at
them. Her eyes had the transparent honesty of a child
who has prepared a cast-iron lie. She smiled at Querry
and said, "I am sorry. I had to come. I was scared.”

Mother Agnes withdrew her hand and watched
Querry closely as though she feared a violent act
against her charge.

Querry said gently, "You mustn’t be frightened. It
was the lopg journey which scared you 4 - Miat’s all.
Now you are safe among friends you will explain,
won’t you ...” He hesitated.

"Oh yes,” she whispered, "everything.”

"They haven’t understood what you told them.
About our visit to Luc together. And the baby. There’s
going to be a baby ?”

"Yes.”

"Just tell them whpsefcaby it is.”

"I have told them,” she said. "It’s yours. Mine, too,
of course,” she added, as though by adding that
qualification she were making everything quite clear

234

and beyond blame.

Father Thomas said, “You see.”

“Why^re you telling them that ? You know it’s not
true. We ha^e never been in each other’s company ex-
cept in Luc.”

“That first time,” she said, “when my husband
brought ydjp to the house.”

It would have been easier if he had felt anger, but
he 4£lt none : to lie is as natural at a certain age as to
play with fire. He said, “You know what you are
saying is all nonsense. I’m certain you don’t want to
do me any harm.”

“Oh no,” she said, “never. Je t’aime, chiri . Je suis
toute d toi .”

Mother \gncs wrinkled her nose with distaste.

“That’s \tfhy I’ve come to you,” Marie Rycker said.

“She ought to rest now,” Mother Agnes said. “All
this can be discussed in the morning.”

“You must let *ne talk to her alone.”

“Certainly not,” Mother Agnes said. “That would
not be right. Father Thomas, you won’t permit
him . . _

“My good woman, do you think I’m going to beat
her? You can come to her rescue at her first scream.”

Father Thomas said, “We can hardly say no if
Mmc. Rycker wishes it.”

“Of course I wish it,” she said. “I came here only
for that.” She put her hand on Qucrry’s sleeve. Her
smile of sad and fallen trust was worthy of Bern-
hardt’s Marguerite Gauthiqf on her death bed.

When they were alone* sho gave# a happy sigh.
“That’s that.”

“Why have you told them these lies?”

“They aren’t all lies,” she said. “I do love you.”

235

“Since when ?”

“Since I spent a night with you.”

“You know very well that was nothingat all. We
drank some whisky. I told you a story to^end you to
sleep.”

“Yes. Once upon a time. That was when I fell in
dove. No, it wasn’t. I’m afraid I’m lying $gain,” she
said with unconvincing humility. “It was when you
came to the house the first time. Un coup defoudre .”

“The night you told them we slept together?”

“That was really a lie too. The night I slept with you
properly was after the Governor’s party.” *'

“What on earth are you talking about now?”

“I didn’t want him. The only way I could manage
was to shut my eyes and think it was you.”

“I suppose I ought to thank you,” Quefry said, “for
the compliment.”

“It was then that the baby must have started. So
you see i\ wasn’t a lie that I told then.”

“Not a lie?”

“Only half a lie. If I hadn’t thought all the time of
you, I’d have been all dried up and babies # d%>n’t come
so easily then, do they ? So in a way it is your child.”

He looked at her with a kind of respect. It would
have needed a theologian to appreciate properly the
tortuous logic of her argument, to separate good from
bad faith, and only recently he had thought of her as
someone too simple and young to be a danger. She
smiled up at him winningly, as though she hoped to en-
tice him into yet another/rf his stories to postpone the
hour of bed. He said,«“Ybu’d better tell me exactly
what happened when you s£w your husband in Luc.”

She said, “It was ghastly. Really ghastly. I thought
once he was going to kill me. He wouldn’t believe

236

V

about the # diary. He went on and on all that night
until I was tired out and I said, ‘All right. Have it your
own w^,y then. I did sleep with him. Here and there
and everywhere.’ Then he hit me. He would have hit
me again, I think, if M. Parkinson hadn’t interfered.”

“Was Parkinson there too, then ?”

“He hdard me cry and came along.”

“To taCe some photographs, I suppose.”

/‘I don’t think he took any photographs.”

^‘And then what happened ?”

“Well, of course, he found out about things in
genetal. You see, he wanted to go home right away,
and I said no, I had to stay in Luc until I knew.
‘Know ?’ he said. And then it all came out. I went and
saw the doctor in the morning and when I knew the
worst I just took off without going back to the hotel.”

“Rycker thinks the baby is mine?”

“I tried very hard to convince him it was his - be-
cause of epurse, you could say in a way th^t it was.”
She stretched herself down in the bed with a sigh of
comfort and said, “Goodness, I'm glad to be here. It
was really scary driving all the way alone. I didn’t
wait in the house to get any food and 1 forgot a bed and
I just slept in the car.”

“In his car?”

“Yes. But I expect M. Parkinson will have given
him a lift home.”

“Is it any use asking you to tell Father Thomas the
truth?”

“Well, I’ve rather burn^l my boats, haven’t I ?”

“You’ve burned the oiflyjiome J have,” Querry
said.

“I just had to escape,” she explained apologeti-
cally. For the first time he was confronted by an ego-

237

ism as absolute as his own. The other Mari^ had been
properly avengdd: as for toute d toi the laugh was on
her side now.

“What do you expect me to do?” QSerry said.
“Love you in return ?”

“It would 4 be nice if you could, but if you can’t,
they’ll have to send me home, won’t they ?”i#

He went to the door and opened it. Mother Agnes
was lurking at the end of the passage. He said, “I’ve
done all I can.”

“I suppose you’ve tried to persuade the poor girl to
protect you.” *

“Oh, she admits the lie to me, of course, but I have
no tape-recorder. What a pity the Church doesn’t
approve of hidden microphones.”

“May I ask you, M. Querry, from now on to stay
away from our house ?”

“You don’t need to ask me that. Be very careful
yourselve^of that little packet of dynamite, in there.”

“She’s a poor innocent young ...”

“Oh, innocent ... I daresay you are right. God
preserve us from all innocence. At least the guilty
know what they are about.” 1

The electric fuses had not yet been repaired, and
only the feel of the path under his feet guided him
towards the mission buildings. The rain had passed to
the south, but the lightning flapped occasionally
above the forest and the river. Before he reached the
mission he had to pass the doctor’s house. An oil lamp
burned behind the windovv and the doctor stood be-
side it, peering oy t. Qu^rr^knocked on the door.

Colin asked, “What has happened ?”

“She’ll stick to her lies. They are her only way of
escape.”

23 8

“Escape?”

“Fronf Rycker and Africa.”

“Father Thomas is talking to the others now. It was '
no coiJlonj of mine, so I came home.”

“They want me to go away, I suppose?”

“I wish to God the Superior were here. Father
Thomas is not exactly a well-balanced man.”

Qucrry sat down at the table. The Atlas of Leprosy
was open at a gaudy page of swirling colour. He said,
“What’s this?”

“We call these ‘the fish swimming upstream’. The
bacilli - those coloured spots there - are swarming
along the nerves.” x

“I thought I had come far enough,” Querry said,
“when I reached this place.”

“It may blow over. Let them talk. You and I have
more important things to do. Now that the hospital’s
finished we can get down to the mobile units and the
new lavatories I talked to you about.”

“We are not dealing with your sick people, doctor,
and your coloured fish. They are predictable. These
are norjnal people, healthy people with unforeseeable
reaction?. It looks as though I shall get no nearer to
Pendele than Deo Gratias did.”

“Father Thomas has no authority over me. You can
stay in my house from now on if you don’t mind
sleeping in the workroom.”

“Oh no, You can’t risk quarrelling with them. You
are too important to this place. I shall have to go
away.”

“Where will you go tc^f”

“I don’t know. It’s grange, isn’f it, how worried I
w r as when I came here, because I thought I had be-
come incapable of feeling pain. I suppose a priest I

239

met on the river Was right. He said one only had to
wait. You said the same to me too.” '

1 m sorry.

“I don’t know that I am. You said once^hdt when
one suffers, one begins to feel part of the human con-
dition, on the side of the Christian myth, do you
remember? ‘I suffer, therefore I am’. I wrote some-
tking like that once in my diary, but I can’t rdmember
what or when, and the word wasn’t ‘suffer’.”

“When a man is cured,” the doctor said, “we can’t
afford to waste him.”

“Cured?”

“No further skin- tests are required in your case.”

4

Father Joseph absent-mindedly wiped a knife with the
skirt of his soutane; he said, “We mustn’t forget that
it’s only her word against his.”

“Why slftmld she invent such a shocking story like
that?” Father Thomas asked. “In any case the baby
is presumably real enough.” H

“Querry has been of great use to us here,* ’ Father
Paul said. “We’ve reason to be grateful ...”

“Grateful ? Can you really think that, father, after
he’s made us a laughing stock? The Hermit of the
Congo. The Saint with a Past. All those stories the
papers printed. What will they print now?”

“You were more pleased with the stories than he
was,” Father Jean said.

“Of course I was pleast^. I believed in him. I
thought his motivls for coming, here were good. I even
defended him to the Superior when he warned me . . .
But I hadn’t realised then what his true motives were.”

240

“If you know them tell us what the^ were,” Father
Jean said, fte spoke in the dry precise tones that he
was accustomed to use in discussions on moral theology
so as to rob^of emotion any question dealing with
sexual sin.

“I # can only suppose he was flying from some
woman-trouble in Europe.”

“Womair-trouble is not a very exact description,
and aren’t we all supposed to run away from it ? St.
Augustine’s wish to wait awhile is not universally
recommended.”

“Qwerry is a very good builder,” Father Joseph
said obstinately.

“What do you propose then, that he should stay
here in the mission, living in sin with Mine. Rycker ?”

“Of course riot,” Father Jean said. “Mme. Rycker
must leave tomorrow. From what you have told us
he has no w'ish to go with her.”

“The matter will not end there,” Father Thomas

. • . •
said. “Rycker will want a separation. He may even

sue Querry for divorce, and the newspapers will print
the whole # edifying story. They aie interested enough
as it is in^d&erry. Do you suppose the General will be
pleased when he reads at his breakfast-table the scan-
dal at our leproserie?”

“The roof-tree is safely up,” Father Joseph said,
rubbing away at his knife, “but a great deal still re-
mains to be done.”

“There is no possible harm in simply waiting,”
Father Paul said. “The girl may be lying. Rycker may
take no action. The newspapers may print nothing,
(it’s not the picture of Quarry tney wanted to give the
world). The story may not even reach the General’s
ears - or eyes.”

241

“Do you su]3jpose the Bishop won’t hear of it? It
toll be all over*Luc by this time. In the absence of the
Superior I am responsible ...”

Brother Philippe spoke for the first tinp. ‘^There’s a
man outside,” he said. “Had I better unlock the
door?” •

. It was Parkinson, sodden and speechless. He had
been walking very fast. He ran his han6 back and
forth over his heart as though he were trying to soothe
an animal that he carried like a Spartan under his
shirt.

“Give him a chair,” Father Thomas said.

“Where’s Querry ?” Parkinson asked.

“I don’t know. In his room perhaps.”

“Rycker’s looking for him. He went to the sisters’
house, but Querry had gone.”

4 How did you know where to look ?”

“She had left a note for Rycker at home. We would
have caught her up, but we had car-trouble at the last
ferry.” *

“Where’s Rycker now ?”

“God knows. It’s so pitch-dark out thcr^. He may
have walked into the river for all I know.’* c

“Did he see his wife ?”

“No - an old nun pushed us both out and locked the
door. That made him madder than ever, I can tell you.
We haven’t had six hours sleep since Luc, and that was
more than three days ago.”

He rocked backwards and forwards on the chair.
“Oh that this too too solid flesh. Quote. Shakespeare.
I’ve got a weak hearf^’ he explained to Father
Thomas who was finding it difficult with his in-
adequate English to follow the drift of Parkinson’s
thoughts. The others watched closely and understood

242

little. The situation seemed to all of them to have got
hopelessly out of control.

“Pledge give me a drink,” Parkinson said. Father
Thomas found that there was a little champagne left
at the bottom of one of the many bottles which still
littered the table among the carcasses of the chickens
and the re pains of the mutilated uneaten souffle.

“Champagne?” Parkinson exclaimed. “I’d rather
Jha^e had a spot of gin.” He looked at the glasses and
the bottles : one glass still held an inch of port. He said,
“You do yourselves pretty well here.”

“It* was a very special day,” Father Thomas said
with some embarrassment, seeing the table for a
moment with the eyes of a stranger.

“A special Hay - I should think it has been. I never
thought wekl make the ferry, and now with this storm
I suppose we may be stuck here. How I wish I’d never
come to this damned dark continent. Quoth the raven
never mor$. Quote. Somebody.”

Outside a voice shouted unintelligibly.

“That’s him,” Parkinson said, “roaming around.
He’s fighting mad. I said to him I thought Christians
were supposed to forgive, but it’s no use talking to him
now.”

The voice came nearer. “Querry,” they heard it cry,
“Querry. Where are you, Querry ?”

“What a damned fuss about nothing. And I
wouldn’t be surprised if there had been no hanky-
panky after all. I told him that. ‘They talked all
night,’ I said, ‘I heard them. Lovers don’t talk all
night. There are intervals m\ sjjence’.”

“Querry. Where are y*u, Querry?”

“I think he wants to believe the worst. It makes him
Querry’s equal, don’t you see, when they fight over

243

the same girl.” He added with a somewhaj surprising
ihsight, “He cafa’t bear not being important.”

The door opened yet again and a touslgd, rain-
soaked Rycker stood in the doorway, an <*ver-watered
bathroom plant; he looked from one father to another
as though atnong them he expected to find Querry,
perhaps in the disguise of a priest.

“M. Rycker,” Father Thomas began.

“Where’s Querry ?”

“Please come in and sit down and talk things ...”

“How can I sit?” Rycker said. “I am a man in
agony.” He sat down, nonetheless, on the wrong chair
- the weak back splintered. “ I’m suffering from a ter-
rible shock, father. I opened my soul to that man, I
told him my inmost thoughts, and this is my reward.”

“Let us talk quietly and sensibly . . . ”•

“He laughed at me and despised me,” Rycker said.
“What right had he to despise me ? We are all equal in
the sight £f God. Even a poor plantation manager and
the Querry. Breaking up a Christian marriage.” He
smelt very strongly of whisky. He said, “I’ll be retiring
in a couple of years. Does he think I’m goirvj to keep
his bastard on my pension ?”

“You’ve been on the road for three days, Rycker.
You need a night’s sleep. Afterwards ...”

“She never wanted to sleep with me. She always
made her excuses, but then the first time he comes
along, just because he’s famous ...”

Father Thomas said, “We all want to avoid scandal.”

“Where’s the doctor?” Rycker said sharply. “They
were as thick as # thieve$.’*«

“He’s at home. He has nothing to do with \his.”

Rycker made for the door. He stood there foV a
moment as though he were on a stage and had for-

2244

gotten his $xit line. “There isn’t a jury that would con-
vict me,” he said and went out again iftto the dark and
rain. Ft p a moment nobody spoke and then Father
Joseph askeH them all, “What did he mean by that?”

“}Ve shall laugh at this in the morning,” Father
Jean said.

“I don’j see the humour of the situation,” Father
Thomas replied.

. “What I mean is it’s a little like one of those Palais
Royal farces that one has read . . . The injured hus-
band pops in and out.”.

“Pdon’t read Palais Royal farces, father.”

“Sometimes I think God was not entirely serious
when he gave man the sexual instinct.”

“If that L 'me of the doctrines you teach in moral
theology . ”

“Nor when he invented moral theology. After all,
it was St. Thomas Aquinas who said that he made the
world in play.”

Brother Philippe said, “Excuse me ..."

“You are lucky not to have my responsibility,
Father Jc^n. I can’t treat the aflair as a Palais Royal
farce whatever St. Thomas may have written. Where
are you going, Brother Philippe ?”

“He said something about a jury, father, and it
occurred to me that, w ell, perhaps he’s carrying a gun.
I think I ought to w arn ...”

“This is too much,” Father Thomas said. He turned
to Parkinson and asked him in English, “Has he a gun
with him?” r%

“I’m sure I don’t knowM let of pepple are carrying
them nowadays, aren’t they ? But he wouldn’t have
the nerve to use it. I told you, he only wants to seem
important.”

245

, “I think, if you will excuse me, father, I had better
gd over to Doctbr Colin’s,” Brother Philippe said,
“Be careful, brother,” Father Paul said#

“Oh, I know a great deal about firearrtfe,” Brother
Philippe replied.

5

“Was that someone shouting?” Doctor Colin asked.

“I heard nothing.” Querry went to the window
and looked into the dark. He said, “I wish Brother
Philippe would get the lights back. It’s time I Vent
home, and I haven’t a torch.” ^

“They won’t start the current now. It’s gone ten
o’clock.”

“They’ll want me to go as soon as I can, won’t they ?
But the boat’s unlikely to be here for at least a week.
Perhaps someone can drive me out ...”

“I doubt if the road will be passable now after the
rain, and there’s more to corne.”

“Then we have a few days, haven’t we, for talking
about those mobile units you dream of. B # ufc ( I’m no
engineer, doctor. Brother Philippe will be able to
help you more than I could ever do.”

“This is a make-shift life we lead here,” Doctor
Colin said. “All I want is a kind of pre-fab on wheels.
Something we can fit onto the chassis of a half-ton
truck. What did I do with that sheet of paper ? There’s
an idea I wanted to show you ...” The doctor
opened the drawer in his jiesk. Inside was the photo-
graph of a wom^n. Sh^ la} there in wait, unseen by
strangers, gathering no dust, tf always present when the
drawer opened.

“I shall miss this room - wherever I am. You’ve
246

never told me about yoijr wife, doctor. How she came
to die” #

“It ^as^leeping-sickness. She used to spend a lot of
time out i^ the bush in the early days trying to per-
suade the lepers to come in for treatment. We didn’t
ha^e such effective drugs for sleeping-sickness as we
have now. People die too soon.” #

“It was my hope to end up in the same patch of
ground as you and she. We would have made an
atlicist corner between us.”

“I wonder if you would have qualified for that.”

“Why not?”

“You’re too troui^jed by your lack of faith, Querry.
You keep on fingering it like a sore you want to get rid
of. I am content with the myth ; you are not - you have
to belicve # or disbelieve.”

Querry said, “Somebody is calling out there. I
thought for a moment it was my name . . . But one
always seems to hear one’s own name, whatever any-
one really calls. It only needs a syllable to be the same.
We are such egoists.”

“Yoij must have had a lot of belief once to miss it the
way y<5u?lo.”

“I swallowed their myth whole, if you call that a
belief. This is my body and this is my blood. Now when
I read that passage it seems so obviously symbolic, but
how can you expect a lot of poor fishermen to recog-
nise symbols? Only in moments of superstition I
remember that I gave up the sacrament before I gave
up thei>clief and the priests would say there was a con-
nection. Rejecting grace Jfrjrcker would say. O well, I
suppose belief is a kind of vocation and most men
haven’t room in their brains or hearts for two voca-
tions. If we really believe in something we have no

247

choice, have we| but to go, further. Otherwise life
slWly whittles the belief away. My architecture stood
still. One can’t be a half-believer or a half-^ircjiitect.”

“Are you saying that you’ve ceased tQ> be even a
half?”

“Perhaps € hadn’t a strong enough vocation in
either, and the kind of life I lived killed them both. It
needs a very strong vocation to withstand success. The
popular priest and the popular architect - their
talents can be killed easily by disgust.”

“Disgust?”

“Disgust of praise. How it nauseates, doctor, l^jts
stupidity. The very people who/ruined my churches
were loudest afterwards in their praise of v hat I’d
built. The books they have written about my work,
the pious motives they’ve attributed to me -7 they were
enough to sicken me of the drawing-board. It needed
more faith than I possessed to withstand all that. The
praise of priests and pious people - the Ryckers of the
world.”

“Most men seem to put up with success comfor-
tably enough. But you came here.” ,

“I think Hm cured of pretty well everything, even
disgust. I’ve been happy here.”

“Yes, you were learning to use your fingers pretty
well, in spite of the mutilation. Only one sore seems to
remain, and you rub it all the time.”

“You are wrong, doctor. Sometimes you talk like
Father Thomas.”

“Querry,” a voice unmistakably called. “Querry.”

“Rycker,” Querry saijjf ,“He must have followed
his wife here. I hope to God the sisters didn’t let him in
to see her. I’d better go and talk ...”

“Let him cool off first.”

248

“I’ve gotjto make him see reason.”

“Then wait till morning. You can’t see reason af
night.”

“Querry. Querry. Where are you, Querry?”

“>^hat a grotesque situation it is,” Querry said.
“That this should happen to me. The innocent adul-
terer. That’^ not a bad title for a comedy.” His mouth <
moved in the effort of a smile. “Lend me the lamp.”

* “you’d do much better to keep out of it, Querry.”

“f must do something. He’s making so much
noise ... It will only ^dd to what Father Thomas
call«40e scandal.”

The doctor reluctzfotly followed him out. The
storm hafcHcome full circle and was beating up to-
wards them n<rain, from across the river. “Rycker,”
Querry calked, holding the lamp up, “I’m here.”
Somebody came running towards them, but when he
reached the area of light, they saw that it was Brother
Philippe. “Please go back into the house,” .Brother
Philippe said, “and shut the door. We think that
Rycker may be carrying a gun.”

“He vjfcyjdn’t be mad enough to use it,” Querry
said.

“All the same ... to avoid unpleasantness ...”

“Unpleasantness . . . you have a wonderful capa-
city, Brother Philippe, for understatement.”

“1 don’t know what you mean.”

“Never mind. I’ll take your advice and hide under
Doctor Colin’s bed.”

He had walked a few steps back when Rycker’s voice
said, “Stop. Stop where yoif arg.” Th^man came un-
steadily out of the dark. He said in a tone of trivial
complaint, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“Well, here I am.”

249

All three looted where Rycker’s right hjmd was hid-
den in his pocket.

“I’ve got to talk to you, Querry.”

“Then talk, and when you’ve finished, Fd like a
word too with you.” Silence followed. A dog barked
somewhere in the leproserie. Lightning lit them all
like a flash-bulb.

“I’m waiting, Rycker.”

“You - you renegade.”

“Are wc here for a religious argument? I’ll admit
you know much more thai? I do about the love of
God.”

Rycker’s reply was partly Juried under the heavy
fall of the thunder. The last sentence stuck'kut like a
pair of legs from beneath the rubble.

44 . . . persuade me what she wrote moant nothing,
and all the time you must have known there was a
child coming.”

"Yoly child. Not mine.”

“Prove it. You’d better prove it.”

“It’s difficult to prove a negative, Rycker. Of
course, the doctor can make a test of my tyood, but
you’ll have to wait six months lor the ...”

“How dare you laugh at me ?”

“Fm not laughing at you, Rycker. Your wife has
done us both an un jury. Fd call her a liar if I thought
she even knew what a lie was. She thinks the truth is
anything that will protect her or send her home to her
nursery.”

“You sleep with her and then you insult her. You’re
a coward. Quarry.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps. Nothing that I can say would
ever anger the Querry, would it ? He’s so infernally im-

250

portant, hoy could he car* what the iifere manager ot
a palm-oil factory - I’ve got an immort&l soul as mucn
as you, Quevy.”

“I don’t make any claims to one. You can be
God’s important man, Rycker, for all I care. I’m not
the Querry to anyone but you. Certainly not to my-
self.” x

“Please come to the mission, M. Rycker,” Brother
Philmpe pleaded. “We’ll put up a bed 1 for you there.
We shall all of us feel better after a night’s sleep. And a
cold shower in the morning,” he added, and as though
to illustrate his words, a waterfall of rain suddenly des-
cended on them. Qii^rry made an odd awkward
sound wflHh the doctor by now had learned to inter-
pret as a laugh, and Rycker fired twice. The lamp fell
with Querry and smashed; the burning wick flared
up once under the deluge of rain, lighting an open
mouth and a pair of surprised eyes, and then went out.

The doctpr plumped down on his knees in jhe mud
and felt for Querry’s body. Rycker’s voice said, “He
laughed at me. How dare he laugh at me?” The doc-
tor said jj^J&rother Philippe, “I have his head. Can
you find his legs? We’ve got to get him inside.” He
called to Rycker, “Put down that gun, you fool, and
help!”

“Not at Rycker,” Querry said. The doctor leant
down closer: he could hardly hear him. He said,
“Don’t speak. We are going to lift you now. You’ll be
all right.”

Querry said, “Laughing at myself.”

They carried him onto the\srand^h and laid him
downpul of the rain. Rycker fetched a cushion for his
head. He said, “He shouldn’t have laughed.”

“He doesn’t laugh easily,” the doctor said, and

251

.again there w is a noise tjiat resembled a distorted
laugh.

“Absurd," Querry said, “this is absur^ or/*lse ..."
but what alternative, philosophical or psychological,
he had in mind they never knew.

i

6

The Superior had returned a few days after the
funeral, and he visited the cemetery with Doctor
Colin. They had buried Qyerry not far from Mme.
Colin’s grave, but with enough space left for tfjfcdoc-
tor in due course. Under th^ special circumstances
Eather Thomas had given way in the mji^ier of the
cross - only a piece of hard wood from the forest was
stuck up there, carved with Querry’s name and dates.
Nor had there been a Catholic ceremony, though
Father Joseph had said unofficially a prayer at the
grave. Someone - it was probably Deo G ( ratias - had
put an old jam-pot beside the mound filled with twigs
and plants curiously twined. It looked more like an
offering to Nzambe than a funeral wreaj^i. Father
Thomas would have thrown it away, but Father
Joseph dissuaded him.

“It’s a very ambiguous offering,” Father Thomas
protested, “for a Christian cemetery.”

“He was an ambiguous man,” Father Joseph re-
plied.

Parkinson had procured in Luc a formal wreath
which was labelled “From three million readers of the
Post . Nature I loved a/cl next to Nature Art. Robert
Browning.” He had photographed it for future use,
but with unexpected modesty he refused to be taken
beside it.

The Superior said to Coljfn, “I can’ttielp regretting
that I wasn’t here. I might have been able to control
Rycker.”, ^

“Something was bound to happen sooner or later,”
Colin said. “They would never have let fiim alone.”

“Who do you mean by ‘they’ ?”

“The foojs, the interfering fools, they exist every-
where, don’t they ? He had been cured of all but his
Success; but you can’t cure success, any more than I
# can give my mutilis <back their fingers and toes. I
return them to the town, and people look at them in
the«|($'es and watch them in the street and draw the
attention of others to thp m as they pass. Success is like
that too^V mutilation of the natural man. Are you
coming rny wiy

“Where are you going ?”

“To the dispensary. Surely we’ve wasted enough
time on the dead.”

“I’ll con*e a litde way with you.” The Superior
felt in the pocket ofhis soutane for a cheroot, but there
wasn’t one there.

“Di^vgu see Ryckcr before you left Luc ?” Colin
asked.

“Of course. They’ve made him quite comfortable
at the prison. He has been to confession and he intends
to go to communion every morning. He’s working
very hard at Garngou-Lagrange. And of course he’s
quite a hero in Luc. M. Parkinson has already tele-
graphed an interview with him and the metropolitan
journalists will soon begin to pour in. I believe
M. Parkinson’s article wayH&aded ‘Death of a Her-
mit. XJ^Saint who Failed/ Ofcourse,^ the result of the
triaf is a foregone conclusion.”

“Acquittal ?”

253

“Naturally. f& crime passfpmel. Everybody will have
got what they wanted - it’s really quite a happy end-
ing, isn’t it? Rycker feels he has becorye important
both to God and man. He even spoke ttfcme about the
possibility of the Belgian College at Rome and an
annulment/ I didn’t encourage him. Mme. lacker
will soon be free to go home and she will keep the
child. M. Parkinson has a much better sdory than he
had ever hoped to find. I’m glad, by the way, that
Querry never read his second article.”

“You can hardly say it was a happy ending for
Querry.’’

“Wasn’t it ? Surely he always wanted to go a bit fur-
ther.” The Superior added shyly, “Do you/tfnnk there
was anything between him and Mme. Rycker?”

“No.”

“I wondered. Judging from Parkinson’s second
article he would seem to have been a man with a
great capacity - well - for love.”

“I’m not so sure of that. Nor was he. He told me
once that all his life he had only made use of women,
but I think he saw himself always in the hardest pos-
sible light. I even wondered sometimes whether he suf-
fered from a kind of frigidity. Like a woman who
changes partners constantly in the hope that one day
she will experience the true orgasm. He said that he
always went through the motions of love efficiently,
even towards god in the days when he believed, but
then he found that the love wasn’t really there for any-
thing except his work, so in the end he gave up the
motions. And afterwa^fe, u when he couldn’t even pre-
tend that what he felt wasiove, the motives ior work
failed him. That was like the crisis of a sickness - When
the patient has no more interest in life at all. It is then

254

that people sometimes kill themselvej, but he was
tough, very tbugh.” #

“You spoke just now as though he had been cured.’**

“I really tfflnk he was. He’d learned to serve other
"people, you see, and to laugh. An odd laugh, but it was
a lavish all the same. I’m frightened of people who
don’t laugh.”

The Superior said shyly, “I thought perhaps you
meant that he was beginning to find his faith again.”

“©h no, not that. Only a reason for living. You try
*loo hard to make a pattern, father.”

“j^uk if the pattern’/ there . . . you haven’t a
cheroot have you ?”

“No.’ t

The Superior said, “We all analyse motives tot)
much. I said that once to Father Thomas. You remem-
ber what Pascal said, that a man who starts looking for
God has already found him. The same may be true of
love - when we look for it, perhaps we’ve already
found it.” * # *

“He was inclined - I only know what he told me
himself - to confine his search to a woman’s bed.”

“It’s : i7ift’3b bad a place to look for it. There are a lot
of people who only find hate there.”

“Like Rycker?”

“We don’t know enough about Rycker to condemn
him.”

“How persistent you are, father. You never let
anyone go, do you? You’d like to claim even Querry
for your^wn.”

“I hej^en’t noticed that y* 1 relax much before a
patient £5es.”

TKey had reached the dispensary. The lepers sat on
the hot cement steps waiting for something to happen.

255

At the new hospital the ladders leant against the roof,
and the last work was in progress. The toof-tree had
\>een battered and bent by the storm, but it was held
in place still by its strong palm-fibre thdfigs*

“I see from the accounts,” the Superior said, “that
you’ve given up using vitamin tablets. Is that 9 wise
economy?”

“I don’t believe the anaemia comes froAi the D.D.S.
treatment. It comes from hookworm. It’s cheaper to
build lavatories than to buy vitamin tablets. That’s
our next project. I mean it was to have been. How’
many patients have turned *up today?” he as ked. the
dispenser.

“About sixty.”

’ “Your god must feel a bit disappointed,” Doctor
Colin said, “when he looks at this world of his.”

“When you were a boy they can’t have taught you
theology very well. God cannot feel disappointment
or pain.”

“Perhaps that’s why I don’t caqp to belfeve in him.”

The doctor sat down at the table and drew forward
a blank chart. “Number one,” he called.

It was a child of three, quite naked, with 5 uitle pot-
belly and a dangling tassel and a finger stuck in the
corner of his mouth. The doctor ran his fingers over
the skin of the back while the child’s mother waited.

“I know that little fellow,” the Superior said. “He
always came to me for sweets.”

“He’s infected all right,” Doctor Colin said. “Feel
the patches here and here. But you needn’t wprry,” he
added in a tone of suptfte^sed rage, “we shal^be able
to cure him in & year Cr t ^o, and I can prolq^se you
that there will be no mutilations.”

256